The Project Gutenberg eBook of Wildwood Ways
    
This ebook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and
most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions
whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms
of the Project Gutenberg License included with this ebook or online
at www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States,
you will have to check the laws of the country where you are located
before using this eBook.

Title: Wildwood Ways

Author: Winthrop Packard

Release date: August 23, 2021 [eBook #66113]

Language: English

Credits: Emmanuel Ackerman, Steve Mattern, Chuck Greif and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive)


*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK WILDWOOD WAYS ***




                             WILDWOOD WAYS

 [Illustration: The muskrats have built higher than common this year]




                             WILDWOOD WAYS

                                  BY

                           WINTHROP PACKARD

                       AUTHOR OF “WILD PASTURES”

                            [Illustration]

                                BOSTON

                      SMALL, MAYNARD AND COMPANY

                              PUBLISHERS




                            COPYRIGHT, 1909

                     BY SMALL, MAYNARD AND COMPANY

                            (INCORPORATED)

                     _Entered at Stationers’ Hall_

                THE UNIVERSITY PRESS, CAMBRIDGE, U.S.A.




The author wishes to express his thanks to the “Boston Transcript” for
   permission to reprint in this volume matter which was originally
                      contributed to its columns.




CONTENTS


                                                                    PAGE

SNUGGING-DOWN DAYS                                                     1

CERTAIN WHITE-FACED HORNETS                                           23

THIN ICE                                                              45

WINTER FERN-HUNTING                                                   65

THE BARE HILLS IN MIDWINTER                                           87

SOME JANUARY BIRDS                                                   107

WHEN THE SNOW CAME                                                   129

THE MINK’S HUNTING GROUND                                            151

IN THE WHITE WOODS                                                   169

THE ROAD TO MUDDY POND                                               191

AMONG THE MUSKRAT LODGES                                             215

THICK ICE                                                            235




ILLUSTRATIONS


The muskrats have built higher than common this
year                                                       _Frontispiece_

                                                           OPPOSITE PAGE

Their paper fort ... had by September grown to
the dimensions of a water-bucket and contained
a prodigious swarm of valiant fighters                                34

There are other feathered folk who seem to delight
in the cold                                                          118

Here in a little tangle of tiny undergrowth and
brown leaves, with a fallen trunk for overhead
shelter, you might find him any forenoon                             132

You may ... get a glimpse of the weasel-like head
of one lifted above the bank as he sniffs the
breeze for game and enemies                                          160

He lifted his head high, fluffed out those glossy
black neck feathers and strutted                                     179

He was in and out again in a jiffy                                   182




SNUGGING-DOWN DAYS


To-day came with a flashing sun that looked through crystal-clear
atmosphere into the eyes of a keen northwest wind that had dried up all
of November’s fog and left no trace of moisture to hold its keenness and
touch you with its chill. It was one of those days when the cart road
from the north side to the south side of a pine wood leads you from
early December straight to early May. On the one side is a nipping and
eager air; on the other sunny softness and a smell of spring. It is more
than that difference of a hundred miles in latitude which market
gardeners say exists between the north and south side of a board fence.
It is like having thousand league boots and passing from Labrador to
Louisiana at a stride.

On the north side of a strip of woodland which borders the boggy outlet
to Ponkapoag Pond lies a great mowing field, and here among the sere
stubble I stand in the pale shadow of deciduous trees and face the wind
coming over the rolling uplands as it might come across Arctic barrens,
singing down upon the northerly outposts of the timber line. On the
south side the muskrat teepees rise from blue water at the bog edge like
peaks of Teneriffe from the sunny seas that border the Canary Isles.
Such contrasts you may find on many an early December day, when walking
in the rarefied brightness of the open air is like moving about in the
heart of a diamond.

Yet even the big mowing field shows unmistakable signs of having been
snugged down for the winter. Here and there a tree, still afloat in its
brown undulating ocean, seems to be scudding for the shelter of the
forest under bare poles, while the stout white oaks lie to near the
coast under double-reefed courses, the brown leaf-sails still holding to
the lower yards while all the spars above have been blown bare. The
woodchuck paths, that not long ago led from one clover patch to another
and then on to well-hidden holes, lie pale and untravelled, while their
fat owners are snugged down below in warm burrows with their noses
folded in under their forepaws. Tradition has it that they will wake in
a warm spell in midwinter and peer out of their burrows to see what the
prospect of spring may be. Hence, the second of February is not only
Candlemas day, but ground-hog day in rural tradition, the day on which
the woodchuck is fabled to appear at the mouth of his underground
retreat and look for weather signs, but I don’t know anyone who has ever
seen him do it. You may often find skunk tracks in the snow or mud
during a good midwinter thaw, but I have never seen those of the
woodchuck then, and I am quite confident that he stays snugged down the
winter through.

Scattered here and there about the borders of the field are groups of
dwarf goldenrod still in full leaf and flower, so far as form goes. The
crowded terminal panicles of bloom bend gracefully towards earth like
stout ostrich plumes, and I think they are more beautiful in the
feathery russet of crowded seed-masses than they were in their September
finery of golden yellow. Their stems are lined with leaves still, but
these have lost their sombre green to put on the color of deep seal
brown. It is as if they had donned their sealskin cloaks for winter
wear.

But all these clumps are doubly protected in another way, not for their
own sake, for they are but dead stems, but for the birds, who will need
their seeds when the snows later in the month shall have covered the
ground far out of their reach. All the autumn the winds have been
whirling dry leaves back and forth, and each clump has trapped them
cunningly till the slender stems that might otherwise be buried and
broken by the snow are reënforced on all sides by elastic leaves that
will hold them bravely up. Here is an open larder, a free-lunch counter
for the goldfinches and chickadees of next January. Here they may glean
and glean again, for except they be plucked by eager beaks some of
these seeds will not let go their grip on the receptacles till spring
rains loosen them and the ground is fit for their sowing.

Everywhere in wood and pasture the numbers of seeds of plants and trees
that are thus held waiting the winter gleaners are incomputable; nor
will these need to seek them on the plant itself, for little by little
as the winter winds come and go they will loose their hold and scatter
themselves about as we scatter crumbs for the snow-birds and sparrows.
Here are the birches, for instance, holding fast still to their wealth.
If bursting spring buds could be gray-brown in color instead of
sage-green we well might think the trees had another almanac than our
own and that with them it was late April, for wherever the trees are
silhouetted against the light we see every twig decorated with new
life. It is new life, indeed, but not that of spring leaves. Every tree
has a thousand cones, and every cone is packed with tiny seeds about a
central core of stiff fibre that is like a fine wire.

Holding the seeds tight in their places are little flat scales, having
an outline like that of a conventionalized fleur-de-lis or somewhat like
tiny flying birds. The whole is so keyed by the tip that as they hang
head down it is possible to dislodge only the topmost scales and seeds.
A very vigorous shake of the tree sends a cloud of these flying, but
when you look at the tree you find that not a thousandth part of its
store has been dispensed. When the midwinter snows lie deep all about,
the paymaster wind will requisition these stores as needed for the tiny
creatures of the wood and scatter them wide on the white surface, till
it will look as if spiced by the confectioner, so well does the forest
take care of its own. The Lady Amina of the Arabian tale picking single
grains of rice at the banquet might not seem to dine more daintily. The
spring will be near at hand when the last of these birch seeds will have
been dispensed. Thus innumerable graneries are stored the woodland and
pasture through, so lightly locked that all may pilfer, and so
abundantly filled, pressed down and running over that there shall be no
lack in either quantity or variety.

Far other and stranger forms of winter-guarding forethought are to be
seen all about the big mowing field and in the coppices that divide it
from the open marsh and the pond shore, if we will but look for them. In
many places has witchery been at work as well as forethought, and
strange and unaccountable things have been brought to pass that tiny
creatures may be kept safe until spring. Here and there among the
goldenrod stems you find one that is swollen to the size of a hickory
nut, a smooth globe which is merely the stem expanded from the diameter
of a toothpick to three-quarters of an inch. When I split this bulb with
my knife I find it made up of tough pith shot through with the growing
fibres of the plant, but having a tiny hollow in the centre.

Here, snugly ensconced and safe from all the cold and storms, is a lazy
creature so fat that he looks like a globular ball of white wax. Only
when I poke him does he squirm, and I can see his mouth move in protest.
His fairy language is too fine for my ear, tuned to the rough accents
of the great world, but if I am any judge of countenances he is saying:
“Why, damme, sir! how dare you intrude on my privacy!”

After all he has a right to be indignant, for I have not only wrecked
his winter home, but turned him out, unclothed and unprotected, to die
in the first nip of the shrewish wind. Unmolested he would have
leisurely enlarged his pith hall by eating away its substance and in the
spring have bored himself a cunning hole whence he might emerge, spread
tiny wings and enjoy the sunshine and soft air of summer. His own
transformations from egg to grub, from grub to gall-fly, are curious
enough; yet stranger yet and far more savoring of magic is the growth of
his winter home. By what hocus-pocus the mother that laid him there made
the slender stem of the goldenrod grow about him this luxurious home,
is known only to herself and her kindred, and until I learn to hear and
translate the language which the grub used in swearing at me when I
broke into his home, it is probable that I shall still remain ignorant.

But let us leave Labrador and let ourselves loose upon Louisiana, for we
may do it in five minutes. The oaks and the pines, the maples, the
birches and the shrubs of the close-set thickets which guard the bog
edge, I know not what straining and restraining power they have upon
this keen wind, but when it has filtered through them it has lost its
shrewishness and, meeting the warm embrace of the low hung sun, bears
aromas of spring. It is as if wood violets had shot his garments full of
tiny odors of April as he traversed the wood, or perhaps the perpetual
magic of life which seems to well up from swampy woodland had seized
upon him as it seizes upon all that passes and made him the bearer of
its potency. Across the bog to the pond outlet, through this spring-soft
atmosphere lies a slender road, lined with thickets, where I do not
wonder the _Callosamia promethia_, the spice-bush silk-moth, likes to
spin his own winter snuggery and dangle in the soft air till the real
spring taps at his silken doorway and soft rains lift the latch and let
him out.

Not far away, among the leaves that lie ankle deep among the shrubbery
that skirts the hickories and oaks, are the cocoons of _Actias luna_;
among them, shed from the oaks, are those of _Telia Polyphemus_, and if
I seek, it is not difficult to find the big pouch where _Samia
cecropia_ waits for the same call. Some May evening there shall be a
brave awakening in the glades and on the borders of the bog. It shall be
as if the tans and pinky purples and rose and yellow of the finest
autumn leaves took wing again in the spring twilight and floated about
at will owing nothing to the winds, and then the luna moth, the fairy
queen of dusk, all clad in daintiest green trimmed with ermine and seal
and ostrich plumes, shall come among them and reign by right of such
beauty as the night rarely sees, all this sprung from the papery cocoons
swung in the roadside bushes or tumbled neglectfully among the shifting
autumn leaves in the tangle at the roots of the wild smilax.

Here is magic for you, indeed, of the kind that the parlor magician is
wont to supply; frail and beautiful things grown at a breath, almost,
from obscure and trivial sources. Yet I seem to find a more potent if
less spectacular witchery in what has been done to the willows that here
and there grow in the thicket that borders the slender bog road. Some
winged sprite has touched their branch tips with fairy wand and
whispered a potent word to them, and the willows have obeyed and grown
cones! These are an inch or more in length and as perfect with scales as
those of the pines up in the wood. But there are no seeds of willow life
in them. Instead there is at the core an orange-yellow, minute grub, the
larva of a fly that stung the willow tip last spring and, stinging it,
laid her egg therein.

That the egg should become a grub and that later the grub in turn should
become a fly is nothing in the way of magic, or that it should fatten
in the meanwhile on willow fibre. The necromancy comes in the fact that
every willow tip that is made the home of this grub should thenceforth
forsake all its recognized methods of growth and produce a cone for the
harboring of the grub during the winter’s cold. There are many varieties
of these gall-producing insects. The oaks still hold spherical
attachments to their leaves, produced in the same way. Look among your
small fruits and you will find the blackberry stems swollen and
tuberculous from a similar cause, and full of squirming life. It is all
necromancy out of the same book, the book of the witchery of insects
that makes human life and growth seem absurdly simple by comparison. The
snugging down of the open world in preparation for winter is full of
such tales, and he who runs through the wood on such a day in December
may read them.

Standing in the spring-like warmth at the pond outlet and looking down
the line where bog meets water I can count the dark peaks of the muskrat
teepees, receding like a coast range toward the other shore. The
muskrats have built higher than common this year, because, I fancy, they
expect much water, having had it low all summer and fall. Some of them
are half as high as I am and must have cost tremendous labor in tearing
out the marsh roots and sods and collecting them thus in pyramidal form.
Their roads run hither and yon across the bog and are so well travelled
that the travellers must be numerous as well as active. They have laid
in a store of lily roots and sweet-flag for the winter, and their
underwater entrances lead upward to quarters that are dry and snug.
Here they are as secure from frost as was the white grub that I hewed
from his pith hall in the goldenrod stem. When the ice is thick all
about, their house will be as hard of outside wall as if built of black
adamant yet their water-entrance will be free, beneath the ice, and they
will go to and fro by it, seeking supplies or perhaps making friendly
calls.

All the morning the marsh grass billowed and the water sparkled, one to
another, about their houses, and if you listened to the grass you might
hear its fine little sibilant song, a soft susurrus of words whose only
consonant is s, set to a sleepy swing. It is a song that seems to
harmonize with the fine tan tones of the bog as they fade into silvery
white where the sun reflects from smooth spears. Over on the distant
hillside the pines, navy blue under cloud shadows, hummed in the wind
like bassoons; distant and muted cornets sang clear in the maples, and
all about the feathery heads of the olive swamp cedars you caught the
faint shrilling of fifes if you would but listen intently. Now and then
the glocken-spiel tinkled in mellow yellow notes among the dry reeds on
the marge, but these echoed but familiar runes. The tan-white bog grass
that is so wild it never heard the swish of scythe, sang, soft and
sibilant, an elfin song of the lonely and untamed.

With the singing of the wind into the tender spring of the south side
the day grew cold with clouds. The sky was no longer softly blue, but
gray and chilling, the pond lost its sparkle and grew purple and numb
with cold, and all among the bare limbs you heard the song of the
promise of snow. But the clouds stopped at a definite line in the west
and at setting the sun dropped below this and sent a golden flood
rolling through the trees that mark the boundary between field and pond,
lighting up all the bog with glory and gilding the muskrat teepees and
the tall bog grass and the distant trees across the water till all the
sere and withered leaves were bathed in serenity, as softly and serenely
bright as if the golden age had come to us all. In this wise the crystal
day, with its sheltered exultation of spring and its gray promise of
winter’s snow all fused into one golden delight of sunset glory, marched
on over the western hills trailing paths of gilded shadow behind it
along which one walked the homeward way as if into the perfect day.





CERTAIN WHITE-FACED HORNETS


The lonesomest spot in all the pasture, the one which the winter has
made most vacant of all, is the corner where hangs the great gray nest
of the white-faced hornets. Its door stands hospitably open but it is no
longer thronged with burly burghers roaring to and fro on business that
cannot wait. It was wide enough for half a dozen to go and come at the
same time, yet they used to jostle one another continually in this
entrance, so great was the throng of workers and so vigorous the energy
that burbled within them. While the warm sun of an August day shines a
white-faced hornet is as full of pent forces, striving continually to
burst him, as a steam fire-engine is when the city is going up in flame
and smoke and the fire chief is shouting orders through the megaphone
and the engineer is jumping her for the honor of the department and the
safety of the community. He burbles and bumps and buzzes and bursts,
almost, in just the same way.

It is no wonder that people misunderstand such roaring energy, driving
home sometimes too fine a point, and speak of _Vespa maculata_ and his
near of kin the yellow jackets, and even the polite and retiring common
black wasp, with dislike. In this the genial Ettrick Shepherd, high
priest of the good will of the open world, does him, I think, much
wrong. “O’ a’ God’s creatures the wasp,” he says, “is the only one that
is eternally out of temper. There’s nae sic thing as pleasing him.”

This opinion is so universal that there is little use in trying to
controvert it, and yet these white-faced hornets which I have known, if
not closely, at least on terms of neighborliness, do not seem to merit
this opprobrium. That they are hasty I do not deny. They certainly brook
no interference with their right to a home and the bringing up of the
family. But I do not call that a sign of ill temper; I think it is
patriotism.

Probably the trouble with most of us is that we have happened to come
into quite literal contact with white-face after the fashion of one of
the early explorers of the country about Massachusetts Bay. Obadiah
Turner, the English explorer and journalist, thus chronicles the
adventure in the quaint phraseology of the year 1629.

“Ye godlie and prudent captain of ye occasion did, for a time, sit on
ye stumpe in pleasante moode. Presentlie all were hurried together in
great alarum to witness ye strange doing of ye goode olde man. Uttering
a lustie screme he bounded from ye stumpe and they, coming upp, did
descrie him jumping aboute in ye oddest manner. And he did lykwise puff
and blow his mouthe and roll uppe his eyes in ye most distressful waye.

“All were greatlie moved and did loudlie beg of him to advertise them
whereof he was afflicted in so sore a manner, and presentlie, he
pointing to his foreheade, they did spy there a small red spot and
swelling. Then did they begin to think yt what had happened to him was
this, yt some pestigeous scorpion or flying devil had bitten him.
Presentlie ye paine much abating he saide yt as he sat on ye stumpe he
did spye upon ye branch of a tree what to him seemed a large fruite, ye
like of wch he had never before seen, being much in size and shape like
ye heade of a man, and having a gray rinde, wch as he deemed, betokened
ripenesse. There being so manie new and luscious fruites discovered in
this fayer lande none coulde know ye whole of them. And, he said, his
eyes did much rejoice at ye sight.

“Seizing a stone he hurled ye same thereat, thinking to bring yt to ye
grounde. But not taking faire aime he onlie hit ye branch whereon hung
ye fruit. Ye jarr was not enow to shake down ye same but there issued
from yt, as from a nest, divers little winged scorpions, mch in size
like ye large fenn flies on ye marshe landes of olde England. And one of
them, bounding against hys forehead did give in an instant a most
terrible stinge, whereof came ye horrible paine and agonie of wch he
cried out.”

Let go on the even tenor of his home-building and home-keeping way,
white-face is another creature. One of his kind used to make trips to
and from my tent all one summer, and we got to be good neighbors. At
first I viewed him with distrust and was inclined to do him harm, but he
dodged my blow and without deigning to notice it landed plump on a
house-fly that was rubbing his forelegs together in congratulatory
manner on the tent roof. He had been mingling with germs of superior
standing, without doubt, this house-fly, but his happiness over the
success of the event was of brief duration. There came from his wings
just one tenuous screech of alarm followed by an ominous silence of as
brief duration. Then came the deep roar of the hornet’s propellers as
he rounded the curve through the tent door and gave her full-speed ahead
on the home road. An hour later he was with me again, had captured
another fly almost immediately, and was off. He came again, many times a
day, and day after day, till I began to know him well and follow his
flights with the interest of an old friend.

He never bothered me or anyone else. He had no time for men; the capture
of house-flies was his vocation and it demanded all his energy and
attention. In fact that he might succeed it was necessary that he should
put his whole soul into earnest endeavor, for he was not particularly
well equipped for his work. He had neither speed nor agility as compared
with his quarry, and if house-flies can hear and know what is after
them, the roar of his machinery, even at slowest speed, must have given
them ample warning. It was like a freighter seeking to capture torpedo
boats. They could turn in a circle of a third the radius of his and
could fly three miles to his one, yet he was never a minute in getting
one.

I think they simply took him for an enlarged edition of their own kind
and never knew the difference until his mandibles gripped them. He used
to go bumbling and butting about the tent in a near-sighted excitement
that was humorous to the onlooker. He didn’t know a fly from a hole in
the tentpole, and there was a tack in the ridgepole whose head he
captured in exultation and let go in a sort of slow wonder every time he
came in. He got to know me as part of the scenery and didn’t mind
lighting on top of my head in his quest, and he never thought of
stinging me. I timed his visits one sunny, still day and found that he
arrived once in forty seconds. But this was only under most favorable
weather conditions. A cloud over the sun delayed him and in wet weather
he was never to be seen.

His method with the fly in hand was direct and effective. The first buzz
was followed by the snip-snip of his shear-like maxillaries. You could
hear the sound and immediately see the gauzy wings flutter slowly to the
tent floor. If the fly kicked much his legs went in the same way. Then
white-face took a firmer grip on his prize and was off with him to the
nest. The bee line is spoken of as a model of mathematical directness,
but the laden bee seeking the hive makes no straighter course than did
my hornet to his nest in the berry bush down in the pasture.

Flies were plentiful and, knowing how many hornets there are in a nest,
I expected at first that he would bring companions and perhaps overwhelm
my hospitality with mere numbers, but he did nothing of the kind. I have
an idea that he was detailed to the fly catching work just as other
workers were busy gathering nectar and honey dew for the young and
others still were nest and comb building. Later in the summer another
did come, but I am convinced that he happened on the other’s game
preserve by accident and was not invited. The two between them must have
captured thousands of flies and carried them off alive to their nest.

Thus their paper fort, hung from the twigs of a blueberry bush, had by
September grown to the dimensions of a water-bucket and contained a
prodigious

[Illustration: Their paper fort had by September grown to the dimensions of a
water-bucket and contained a prodigious swarm of valiant fighters]

swarm of valiant fighters and mighty laborers, so much will persistent
labor, even by near-sighted, dunder-headed hornets, accomplish. I say
near-sighted, for the two specimens of _Vespa maculata_ who used to hunt
flies in my tent were certainly that. I say also dunder-headed, for if
not that they would have learned eventually the location of that tack
head and ceased to capture it. Barring these failings, no doubt
congenital, I know of no pasture people who show greater virtues or more
of them than the white-faced hornets.

The weak beginnings of their great community home in the berry bush were
made in early May when a single lean and hungry queen mother crept from
a crevice in the heart of a great hollow chestnut where she had survived
the winter. She sunned herself for a time at the opening, then began
eagerly chewing fibre from a gray and bare dead limb near by. She chewed
this and when it was softened to a pulp she flew straight to the berry
bush and began her long summer’s work. Laboring patiently she made and
brought enough of the paper pulp moistened with her own saliva to form a
nest half the size of an egg containing just a few cells in a single
comb that was horizontal and opened downward. In these she laid an egg
each, worker’s eggs.

Always the first brood is of workers only, and it would seem that the
mother hornet is able by some strange necromancy to lay an egg which
shall produce, as she wills, a worker, a drone or another queen, for the
hornet hive, like that of the honey-bee, has the three varieties. While
these eggs hatch she completes the nest and then begins feeding the
funny little white maggots which hang head down in the cells, stuck to
the top by a sort of glue which was deposited with the egg.

Honey and pollen is the food which the youngsters receive, varied as
they grow up with a meat hash of insects caught by the mother and chewed
fine. Soon they fill the cells, stop eating, and spin for themselves a
sort of silk night shirt and a cap with which they close the mouth of
the cell. Here they remain quiet for a few days, changing from grub to
winged creature as does a butterfly during the chrysalis stage of its
existence.

Those were busy days for the queen mother, for she had the work and the
care of the whole wee hive on her hands, and she showed herself capable
not only of doing her own feminine part in the hive economy, but that of
half a dozen workers as well, making paper, doing construction work,
finding and bringing honey and pollen and insects for the food of the
young grubs, and finally helping them cut away the seals to the cells
and grasping the young hornets in her mandibles and hauling them out of
their comb.

These young hornets washed their faces, cleaned their antennæ, ate one
more free meal and set to work. Thereafter the queen mother, having
reared her retinue, worked no more, but kept the hive and produced
worker eggs as new cells were provided for them, now and then perhaps
feeding the children when the workers were busiest.

The first care of the new-born workers was to clean out the once used
cells and to build new ones. But there was no room for new comb within
the thin paper envelope which the mother had built as a first hive.
They therefore cut this away, chewing it to pulp again, and building new
cells with a larger covering all about them. Then below the first comb
they hung a second by paper columns so that there was space for them to
pass between the two, standing on top of one comb while they fed the
young hanging head down in the comb above.

They also added cells to the sides of the old comb, making it much
wider. The first little round egg-shaped nest was all of one color, a
soft gray, but the new additions are apt to be lighter or darker in
color, according to the idiosyncrasies of the individual worker. Some
indeed have a faint touch of brown when newly added to the structure
though these soon fade, yet you may recognize always the dividing line
between one hornet’s work and another’s by the difference in shade.

Thus the work went on during the summer, more cells being added to the
existing combs, new combs being hung below, and always the surrounding
envelope being cut away and replaced to accommodate the internal growth.
Late August saw the last additions made. The hive then roared with life.
The summer had been a good one and food was plentiful. Under the bounty
of fierce summer heat and ample food the workers had developed a new
faculty.

I have given them the masculine pronoun in speaking of them, for they
certainly seemed to deserve it. Surely only males could be at once so
sharp and so blunt, so burly, so strenuous and so devoid of interest in
anything but their work. Yet it is a fact that in August some of the
workers began to lay eggs, and if the old proverb that “Like produces
like” holds good they still deserve the masculine pronoun, for these
eggs produced only males.

At the same time the queen began to lay eggs which were destined to
produce other queens. How all this could have been known about
beforehand it is hard to tell, but such must have been the fact, for the
cells in which these eggs were to be laid were made larger than the
others as the greater size of males and females requires.

Thus the climax of the work of the great paper hive was reached. The new
queens had been safely reared and had reached maturity when the first
chill days of autumn came. These days brought rain, and the change from
bustling life to silence was most startling. Almost in a day the hive
was deserted. It was as if the entire colony had swarmed, and so they
had, but not as a hive of bees swarms. They had left the old home never
to return, but not as a colony seeking a new land in which to prosper.
The first chill of autumn laid the cold hand of death on their busy
life. They went away as individuals and stopped, numbed with cold,
wherever the chill caught them.

Where they went it is hard to say, but one hornet or a thousand crawling
into a crevice to escape the cold is easily lost in the great world of
out-of-doors. No worker survives the winter. I think the intensity of
their labors during the summer, the continued use of that energy that
bubbles within them all summer long, exhausts them and they succumb
easily, worked out. With the young queens it is different. Their work is
yet to come, and the strong young life within them gives them vitality
to endure the winter, though seemingly frozen stiff in their crevices.
Yet only a few of these come through in safety. If the queens of one
hive all built next year, the pasture would be a far too busy place for
mere man to visit.

It is just as well as it is, yet I am glad that each year sees at least
one queen white-face pulp-making in the May sun. Pasture life without
her uproarious progeny would lack spice. The great gray nest is pathetic
in its emptiness, and I am glad to forget it and its bustling throng,
remembering only the one busy worker that used to come into the tent
and, having caught his fly, hang head downward from ridge-pole or
canvas-edge by one hind foot while all his other feet were busy holding
his lamb for the shearing.




THIN ICE


Toward midnight the pond fell asleep. All day long it had frolicked with
the boisterous north wind, pretending to frown and turn black in the
face when the cold shoulders of the gale bore down upon its surface,
dimpling as the pressure left it and sparkling in brilliant glee as the
low hung sun laughed across its ruffles. The wind went down with the
sun, as north winds often do, and left a clear mirror stretching from
shore to shore, and reflecting the cold yellow of the winter twilight.

As this chill twilight iced into the frozen purple of dusk, tremulous
stars quivered into being out of the violet blackness of space. The
nebular hypothesis is born again in the heavens each still winter
night. It must have slipped thence into the mind of Kant as he stood in
the growing dusk of some German December watching the violet-gray frost
vapors of the frozen sky condense into the liquid radiance of early
starlight, then tremble again into the crystalline glints of unknown
suns whirling in majestic array through the full night along the myriad
miles of interstellar space.

Standing on the water’s edge on such a night you realize that you are
the very centre of a vast scintillating universe, for the stars shine
with equal glory beneath your feet and above your head. The earth is
forgotten. It has become transparent, and where before sunset gray sand
lay beneath a half-inch of water at your toe-tips, you now gaze downward
through infinite space to the nadir, the unchartered, unfathomable
distance checked off every thousand million miles or so by unnamed
constellations that blur into a milky way beneath your feet. The pond is
very deep on still winter nights.

If you will take canoe and glide out into the centre the illusion is
complete. There is no more earth nor do the waters under the earth
remain; you float in the void of space with the Pleiades for your
nearest neighbor and the pole star your only surety. In such situations
only can you feel the full loom of the universe. The molecular theory is
there stated with yourself as the one molecule at the centre of
incomputability. It is a relief to shatter all this with a stroke of the
paddle, shivering all the lower half of your incomputable universe into
a quivering chaos, and as the shore looms black and uncertain in the
bitter chill it is nevertheless good to see, for it is the homely earth
coming back to you. You have had your last canoe trip of the year, but
it has carried you far.

No wonder that on such a night the pond, falling asleep for the long
winter, dreams. A little after midnight it stirred uneasily in its sleep
and a faint quiver ran across its surface. A laggard puff of the north
wind that, straggling, had itself fallen asleep in the pine wood and
waked again, was now hastening to catch up. The surface water had been
below the freezing point for some time and with the slight wakening the
dreams began to write themselves all along as if the little puff of wind
were a pencil that drew the unformulated thoughts in ice crystals. Water
lying absolutely still will often do this. Its temperature may go some
degrees below the freezing point and it will still be unchanged. Stir
it faintly and the ice crystals grow across it at the touch.

Strange to tell, too, the pond’s dreams at first were not of the vast
universe that lay hollowed out beneath the sky and was repeated to the
eye in its clear depths. Its dreams were of earth and warmth, of
vaporous days and humid nights when never a frost chill touched its
surface the long year through, and the record the little wind wrote in
the ice crystals was of the growth of fern frond and palm and
prehistoric plant life that grew in tropic luxuriance in the days when
the pond was young.

These first bold, free-hand sketches touched crystal to crystal and
joined, embossing a strange network of arabesques, plants drawn
faithfully, animals of the coal age sketched in and suggested only,
while all among the figures great and small was the plaided level of
open water. This solidified, dreamless, about and under the decorations,
and the pond was frozen in from shore to shore. Thus I found it the next
morning, level and black under one of those sunrises which seem to
shatter the great crystal of the still atmosphere into prisms. The cold
has been frozen out of the sky, and in its place remains some strange
vivific principle which is like an essence of immortality.

New ice thus formed has a wonderful strength in proportion to its
thickness. It is by no means smooth, however. The embossing of the
reproductions of these pond dreams of fern and palm and plesiosaurus
makes hubbles under your steel as you glide over it, though little you
care for that on your first skate of the year. The embossing it is, I
think, that largely gives it its strength, and though it may crack and
sag beneath you as you strike out, you know that its black texture is
made up of interlacing crystals that slip by one another in the bending,
but take a new grip and hold until your weight fairly tears them apart.

The small boy knows this instinctively and applies it as he successfully
runs “teetley-bendoes” to the amazement and terror of the uninitiated
grown-ups. If you have the heart of the small boy still, though with an
added hundred pounds in weight, you may yet dare as he does and add to
the exhilaration born of the wine-sweet air the spice of audacity. An
inch or so of transparent ice lies between you and a ducking among the
fishes which dart through the clear depths, fleeing before the under
water roar of your advance, for the cracks, starting beneath your feet
and flashing in rainbow progress before you and to the right and left,
send wild vibrations whooping and whanging through the ice all over the
pond. Now the visible bottom drops away beneath you to an opaqueness
that gives you a delicious little sudden gasp of fear, for you realize
the depth into which you might sink; again it rises to meet you and here
you may bear down and gain added impetus, for you know that the ice will
be thicker in shallow water.

So you go on, and ever on. It is not wise to retrace your strokes, for
those ice crystals that gave to let you through and then gripped one
another again to hold you up may not withstand a second impact; nor is
it wise to stop. Mass and motion have given you momentum and you have
acquired some of the obscure stability of the gyroscope. You tend to
stay on your plane of motion, though the ice itself has strength to hold
only part of your weight. Thus the wild duck, threshing the air with
mighty strokes, glides over it, held up by the same obscure force. The
ice has no time to break and let you through. You are over it and onto
another bit of uncracked surface before it can let go.

The day warmed a little with a clear sun but the frost that night bit
deep again and the next morning the ice had nearly doubled in thickness
and would not crack under any strain which my weight could put upon it.
A second freezing, even though both be thin, gives a stronger ice than a
single freezing of equal depth, just as the English bowmaker of the old
days used to glue together a strip of lancewood and a strip of yew, or
even two strips of the same wood, thus making a far stiffer bow than one
made of a single piece of equivalent dimensions.

This ice was much smoother too. That evaporation which is steadily going
on from the surface of ice even in the coldest weather, the crystals
passing to vapor without the intervening stage of water, had worn off
the embossing. The ice instead of being black was gray with countless
air bubbles all through its texture. You will always find these after a
day’s clear sun on a first freezing. I fancy the ice crystals make
minute burning glasses under the sun’s rays and thus cause tiny meltings
within its own bulk, the steam of the fusing making the bubbles; or it
may be that the air with which the north wind of two days before had
been saturating the water was thus escaping from solution.

It was midday of this second day of skating weather before I reached the
pond. The sky was overcast, the wind piped shrill again, and there were
snow-squalls about. The pond was empty and lone. I thought no living
creature there beside myself, and it was only at the second call of a
familiar voice that I believed I heard it. Then, indeed, I stopped and
listened up the wind. It came again, a wild and lonely whistle that was
half a shout, beginning on the fifth of the scale, sliding to the top of
the octave, and then to a third above, and I heard it with amazement.
The pond was firmly covered with young ice. Why should a loon be sitting
out on it and hooting to me?

There was silence for a space while I looked in vain, for the first
flakes of a snow-squall were whitening the air and had made the distant
shore indistinct. Then it spoke again, almost confidentially, that still
lonely but more pleasing whinny, a sort of “Who-who-who-who” that is
like a tremulous question, weird laughter, or a note of pain as best
fits the mind of the listener. The voice came from the geographical
centre of the pond’s loneliness, the one point where a wild bird like
the loon, obliged to make a stand, would find himself farthest from all
frequented shores. I skated up the wind in that direction, but the snow
blew in my eyes and I could see but little.

Suddenly right in front of me there was a wild yell of dismay, despair
and defiance all mingled in a single loon note, but so clearly expressed
that you could not fail to recognize them, then a quick splash, and I
had almost skated into a hole in the ice, perhaps some ten feet across.

Then I knew what had happened. A loon, wing-tipped by some poor
marksman, had dropped into the pond before the freeze. He could dive and
swim, no doubt, as well as ever but could not leave the water. When the
pond began to freeze he did the only thing possible in his losing fight.
That was to seek the loneliest spot in the surface and keep an opening
in the ice when it began to form. I could see the fifteen-foot circle
which had been his haven for the first night and day. Then with the
second freezing night he had been obliged to shorten this. Two feet and
a half of new ice showed his inner line of defence rimmed accurately
within the greater circle and showing much splashing where he had, I
thought, breasted it desperately all the long night in his brave fight
to keep it open.

How long without human intervention he might brave the elements and keep
his narrowing circle unfrozen would of course depend on the weather. If
it did not come on too severe he might live on there till his wing
healed and by a miracle win again to flight and safety. The cold would
not trouble him nor the icy water. The loon winters anywhere from
southern Massachusetts south and, strong and well, has no fear of
winter. But there entered into this the human equation. The next man
along would likely go home and get a shotgun.

As I noted all this a head appeared above the water in the pool. There
was another shriek of alarm and it vanished in a flash and a splash. It
was forty seconds by my watch before the bird appeared again. This time
he rose almost fully to the surface and sounded a war cry, then dove
again and was under for seventy seconds. And so as long as I stood my
distance motionless he came and went, never above water for more than a
few seconds, varying in length of time that he stayed below from half a
minute to a minute and a quarter, and never going below without sounding
the eerie heartbreak of his call.

Then I skated away to get my camera and was gone three-quarters of an
hour. Returning I saw him in the distance, for the snow had almost
passed. He saw me too and dived. Gliding up I knelt at the very edge of
the hole and was fixing the camera when he came up. He sat level on the
surface for a second, seemingly not noticing me. Then, warned by a
motion that I made in trying to adjust the focus, he sounded a wild and
plaintive call that seemed to have in it mingled fear and defiance,
heartbreak and triumph, and plunged beneath the surface with a vigor and
decision that sent him far beneath the ice, his great webbed feet
driving him with great jumps, as a frog swims.

I saw him shoot away from the hole, trailing bubbles. I waited kneeling,
watch in hand and thumb on bulb, a minute, two minutes, three, five,
ten. The snow shut in again thick, the north wind sang a plaintive dirge
and I realized that the picture would never be taken. Instead I was
kneeling at the deathbed of a wild Northern spirit that perhaps
deliberately took that way of ending the unequal struggle.

The loon knows not the land. Even his nest he builds on the water’s
edge and clambers awkwardly to it with wings and bill as well as feet.
The air and water are his home, the water far more than the air, and he
knows the underwater world as well as he does the surface. I shall never
know whether my loon went so far in his flight beneath the ice that he
failed to find his way back, or whether his strength gave out. Knowing
his untamed and fearless spirit I am inclined to believe that he
deliberately elected to die at home, in the cool depths that he loved
rather than come back to his poor refuge in the narrowing ice circle and
face that strange creature that knelt at the edge.




WINTER FERN-HUNTING


The spring of this, our new year of 1909, is set by the wise makers of
calendars to begin at the vernal equinox, say the twenty-first of March,
but the weatherwise know that on that date eastern Massachusetts is
still in the thrall of winter, and spring, as they see it, is not due
till a month later.

Yet they are both wrong, and we need but go into the woods now to prove
it. The spring in fact is already here. The new life in which it is to
express itself in a thousand forms is already growing and much of it had
its beginning in late August or early September of last year. The wind
out of the north may retard it indeed, but it needs but a touch of the
south wind to start it in motion again, and the deep snows that are yet
to come and bury it so that the waves of arctic atmosphere that may roll
over its head for weeks will never be able to touch it are a help.

Many a hardy little spring plant blooms first, not in April as we are
apt to think, but more likely in January, though it may be two feet deep
beneath the snow and ice and unseen by any living creature. To go no
farther than my own garden, I have known a late January thaw, rapidly
carrying off deep snow, to reveal the “ladies’ delights” in bloom
beneath an overarching crust of ice. The warm snow blankets had
effectually insulated the autumn grown buds from the zero temperature
two feet above, and the warmth of the earth beneath had not only passed
through the frost but melted a little cavern beneath the snow, and
there the hardy plants had responded to the impulse of the spring that
was already with them.

In this wise the chickweed blooms the year round though rarely are
circumstances such that we note it in the winter months. Now and then
the hepatica opens shy blue eyes beneath the enfolding snow and it is
common in times of open weather in midwinter to read newspaper reports
of the blooming of dandelions in December, or January. These are just as
much in bloom on other winters but the snow covers them from sight and
it takes a thaw which sweeps the ground clear of snow to reveal them.

It is good now and then to get a green Christmas such as we have just
had, for in it we may go forth into the fields and realize that the
spring has not retreated to the Bahamas, but merely to the subsoil,
whence it slips, full of warmth and thrill, on any sunshiny day. If we
will but seek the right places we need not search long to find April all
about us, though they may be cutting ten-inch ice on the pond and winter
overcoats be the prevailing wear.

To-day I found young and thrifty plants, green and succulent, of two
varieties of fern that are not common in my neighborhood and that I had
never suspected in that location. I had passed them amid the universal
green of summer without noticing them, but now their color stood out
among the prevailing browns and grays as vividly as yellow blossoms do
in a June meadow.

Yet I sought the greater ferns of my acquaintance in vain in many an
accustomed place. Down by the fountain head is a spot where the black
muck, cushioned with yielding sphagnum, slopes gently upward to firmer
ground beneath the maples till these give way to the birches on the
drier hillside. Here the ostrich fern waved its seven-foot fronds in
feathery beauty amid the musky twilight of the swamp all summer long.

It was as if giants, playing battledore, had driven a hundred green
shuttlecocks to land in the woodcock-haunted shelter. The tangle of
their fronds was chin high and you smashed your way through their woody
stipes with difficulty, so strong and thick were they. Now they have
vanished and scarcely a trace of their presence remains. Brown and
brittle stalks rise a little from the earth here and there, and if you
search among fallen leaves you may find the ends of their rootstalks
with the growth for next year coiled in compact bundles there, ready to
unfold.

From these rootstalks spring in all directions slender underground
runners whence will grow new plants. But none of this is visible. The
only reminder of that once luxurious thicket is the brittle, brown
stalks that still, here and there, protrude from the fallen leaves.

It is difficult to see where they all went, but there is something
savoring of the supernatural about ferns, anyway. Shakspeare says: “We
have the receipt of fern-seed; we walk invisible.” For men to use this
receipt the seed must be garnered on St. John’s eve in a white napkin
with such and such incantations properly recited. The _Struthiopteris
germanica_ had plenty of fern-seed on St. John’s eve. It must have used
the old-time incantations with success, for all the giant shuttlecocks
that thronged the swale with a close-set tangle of feathery green have
vanished.

I sought another moist and shady woodland where all the early spring the
ground was a warm pinky brown with the fuzz of uncurling fiddle heads,
and later the brown, leaf-carpeted earth was hidden in a delicate lace
patterned of the young fronds of the cinnamon and the interrupted fern.
To this woodland came the yellow-warblers for the soft fuzz for use in
nest building, it compacting readily into a felt-like mass that is at
once yielding and durable. The cinnamon fern when it has reached any
size has an underground stump that is as woody and tough almost as that
of a tree. Its strong fronds are next to those of the ostrich-fern in
the woody vigor of their stipes. Surely these might have lasted. Yet
not one form of fern life was visible in this once thronged wood. Like
the ostrich ferns they had poured their own fern-seed on their heads and
whispered the correct incantation at the coming of the first chill wind.
I am inclined to think it all happened in a jiffy, when happen it did,
for I have been back and forth through that part of the wood all the
fall and I cannot recall the day on which they were first missing. It
seems as if I would have noticed their gradual crumbling and decay.

The same is true of the clumps of _Osmunda regalis_ that grew here and
there along the pond shore. Rightly named “regalis” they stood in royal
beauty four or five feet tall and leaning over the water’s edge admired
the bipinnate grace of their fronds, while the tallest stalks bore aloft
the clusters of spore cases that looked like long spikes of plumed
flowers. No wonder the plant which is common to England also drew the
notice of Wordsworth, who refers to it as--

                              “that tall fern,
    So stately, of the queen Osmunda named.
    Plant lovelier in its own retired abode
    On Grassmere beach than naiad by the side
    Of Grecian brook.”

Flowering fern it is rightly named, too, but it had flowered and gone,
and I found of all its regal beauty but a single stalk with brown
spore-cases held rigidly aloft among a tangle of brown leaves and bog
grass.

Then I looked for the sensitive fern. This with its slender, creeping
rootstock sending up single fronds is less woody than any of the others
and I began to suspect that it would have disappeared utterly. So the
sterile fronds had. There was no trace of them in spots that in summer
were a perfect tangle. But this was not true of the fertile stalks. Here
and there these, like the one of the royal fern, stood erect and bore
their close-lipped spore cases, seal-brown and stiff, high above dead
leaves and other decay of fragile annuals.

All this made a disheartening fern chase, and I turned to the steep side
of the hemlock-shaded northern hill, sure of one hardy variety that
would have no use for invisibility, however chill the north wind might
blow. No smile of direct sunlight ever touches this hill. It is set so
steep that only the mid-summer midday sun overtops its slant and this
the dense hemlock foliage shuts out. No woodland grasses grow in its
dense shadow and only here and there the partridge berry and the pyrola
creep down a little from the top of the ridge where some sunlight slips
in. Yet in its densest part the Christmas fern revels and throws up
fronds that seem to catch some of their dark beauty from the deep green
twilight of the place. In the spring these stand in varying degrees of
erectness, but autumn seems to bring a change in the cellular structure
of the lower part of the stipe and weaken it so that the fronds fall
flat upon the earth. They lose none of their firm texture or color,
however, and be the temperature ever so low or the snow ever so deep
they undergo no further change till the next spring fronds are well
under way. Sometimes even in mid-summer you may find the fronds of the
year before, somewhat fungi-encumbered and darkened with age, but still
green.

No other fern grows in the denser portions of this hemlock twilight,
though the Christmas fern clings close to it, and does not spread to the
more open glades on other portions of the hill. Another northern hill of
similar steepness but shaded by an old growth of pines through which
certain sunlight filters during most of the day has specimens of the
_Polystichum acrostichoides_ growing only in its most sheltered nooks
from which they do not seem to spread even to the brighter spots near by
on the same declivity. Hence I infer that the plant prefers the
twilight, and does not thrive in even occasional sunlight.

Just at the base of this second hill, however, where cool springs begin
to bubble forth in the mottled shadow, I caught a gleam of a lighter,
lovelier green that was like a dapple of sunlight on clumps of Christmas
ferns, and I came near passing it by for that. Then, because I had
never seen this fern growing in a dapple of sunlight, I went to it and
found that I had chanced upon a group of the spinulose wood fern. The
plumose fronds showed no more winter effects than did those of the
Christmas ferns. The keen frosts had not shrivelled them, nor was there
any hint of the brown that might come with the ripening of leaves or the
departure of sap.

Like the other ferns they had suffered a failing of tissues near the
base of the stipe, but pinnules, midribs and rachis were as softly,
radiantly green as they had been under the full warmth of the summer
sun. Owing to this failure of tissues in the stipe they lay flat to the
ground, but they were still beautiful, perhaps more so than they had
been when they stood more erect in summer, and were obscured and hidden
by the other green things of the wood. I know I tramped within a few
feet of them again and again last summer without noticing them, yet
to-day they caught my eye a long way off, and held it in admiration even
after a long and close inspection.

Farther down in the very swamp, laid flat along the sphagnum and
oftentimes frozen to it, were fronds of the crested shield-fern and the
patches of these tolled me far from my find and it was only on coming
back for another look that I discovered the prettiest thing about it.
That was, near by and half sheltered by tips of the elder fronds, young
plants of the same variety, just advancing from the prothallus stage and
having one or two miniature fronds like those of the parent plant but
not more than two or three inches long.

These looked so tiny as compared with the mature ferns, but were so
erect and confident, so fresh and green and very much alive though the
temperature about them night after night had been far below freezing and
their roots then stood in ice, that it was worth a journey, just to look
at them. How their tender tissues had stood the temperature of ten above
zero that had surrounded them a few nights before is more than I can
answer. The faintest touch of frost kills the fronds of the great
seemingly tough cinnamon and ostrich ferns. Yet these dainty little
plants of _Nephrodium spinulosum_ with their miniature fronds of tender
lacework had not even wilted or cowered before deep and continued cold
as had the stalks of their elders of the same species, but stood erect,
nonchalant and seemingly eagerly growing still.

We may say if we will that it is all a part of that magic of youth that
makes a million miracles each spring but that does not explain it. Why
should these be so strong and full of life when the fronds of the
hay-scented fern, for instance, have been shrivelled to dry and
crumbling brown fragments under the same conditions? I cannot answer
this either.

Last of all I thought of the polypodys that grow in the rock crevices
all down along the glen, and went to see how they fared. It has been a
hard year for these little fellows. There must have been weeks at a time
during the scorching days of the long summer’s drought that their roots,
clinging precariously in rock crevices and dependent for moisture wholly
on rain and dew, were dry to the tips. The very heat of the rock itself
under the blister of the sun would not only evaporate all moisture, but
would so remain in the rock all night as to prevent any dew from
condensing on it.

I had seen the polypodys at midday curled up on themselves seemingly
nothing but dried tissues that could never be again infused with the
breath of green life. Yet, let there come but the briefest of showers
and you would see them uncurl, lift their fronds to the breeze, and go
on as cheerily as their lower level neighbors the lady-ferns whose
pinnules flashed in the drip of the splashing stream and whose roots
bathed in the shallows.

The summer must have weakened them. Were they the sort to shrivel at the
touch of the freezing wind and vanish into the fern-seed magic of
invisibility? Not they. The slender crevice of black dirt in which their
roots grow was black adamant with frost, but the polypodys swayed in
the biting wind as jauntily as they had in the soft airs of summer and
were as green and unharmed by the winter thus far as the Christmas ferns
had been.

While I gazed at them, admiring their toughness and courage, my eye
caught a bit of greenery on the rock high above and I had found the
second unexpected fern of my winter day’s hunt, for there from a crevice
dripped the rounded, finely crenate, dark green pinnæ of _Asplenium
trichomanes_, the maidenhair spleenwort.

Many a day during the summer had I sat on that ledge, listening to the
prattle of the brook down the glen and watching the demoiselle flies
flit coquettishly up and down stream while the dragonflies with
masculine directness darted hither and thither. The polypodys must have
often dropped their fern-seed on my head, but the magic that they
invoked with it must have been of the sort that made not me, but the
little fern above invisible, for it remained for this winter day of a
green Christmas week to show me its fragile beauty still green and
undisturbed in the winter weather. No other evidence was needed, nor
could I have any so good, to prove that spring is indeed here before the
winter comes, and though the cold and snow may retard they cannot
prevent it from reaching the full beauty and climax of maturity.




THE BARE HILLS IN MIDWINTER


Toward morning the south rain, whose downpour was the climax of the
January thaw, ceased, and in the warm silence that followed Great Blue
Hill seemed like a gigantic puffball growing out of the moist twilight
into the dryer upper atmosphere of dawn. Standing on its rounded dome
you had a singular sense of being swung with it upward and eastward to
meet the light. At such times the whirling of the earth on its axis is
so very real that one wonders that the ancients did not discover it long
before they did. Surely their mountaineers must have known.

After a little the battlemented donjon of the observatory looms clear
and you begin to notice other details of the gray earth beneath your
feet. The south wind has brought and left with you for a brief space the
atmosphere of the Bermudas, and you need only the joyous hubbub of bird
songs to think it June instead of January. Instead there is a breathless
silence that is like resignation and a portent all in one. Breathing
this soft air in the golden glow of daybreak it seems as if there could
never be such things as zero temperature and northwest gales; but the
whole top of the hill keeps silence. It knows.

As the day grows brighter you can see the little scrub-oaks that make
the summit plateau their home crouch and settle themselves together for
the endurance test which is their winter lot. They have opened their
hearts to the south rain while it lasted, but they know what to expect
the moment it is gone. They studied the weather from Blue Hill summit
long before the observatory was thought of.

All trees love the hill, but few can endure its winter rigors. You can
see where the hickories and red cedars have swarmed up the steep from
all sides, and as you note how the scrub-oaks compact themselves you
will see also the cedars holding the rim of rock as did that thin red
line of Scottish Highlanders at Inkermann, all dwarfed and crippled with
the struggle till they seem far different trees from the debonair slim
and sprightly red cedars of the alluvial plain. You can fairly see them
clench their teeth and hang on.

Yet they love the rocks that they have gripped for some hundreds of
years, and nothing but death will part them. There are red cedars
growing out of the gray granite near the southern rim of Blue Hill that
I believe were there when Bartholomew Gosnold stepped ashore, the first
Englishman to set foot on the soil of Massachusetts. No such age belongs
to the hickories that have managed to get head and shoulders above the
rim of the plateau, yet they too have lost their slender straightness.
The cold and the summit winds have pressed them back upon themselves
till they are stubby, big-headed dwarfs.

Of how the other trees climb the hill we shall learn more if we begin at
the bottom, and we could have no better day in which to look them up
than this, for the south rain has swept the ground bare of all snow and
left us for a space this temperature of the Carolinas rather than that
of Labrador, which is our usual portion in January. Indeed, from the
sunny plain which stretches from the southern base of the rock declivity
you can see where even tender and jocund plants once began the climb
most jauntily.

Stalwart yellow gerardias, six feet tall some of them, grow in the rich
black mould that makes steps upward through the rock jumble. From August
till the frost caught them they scattered sunshine all along beneath the
hickories and chestnuts, maples and white oaks, tipping it out of golden
bowls to be shattered into the mists of goldenrod blooms that followed
after. These gerardias, though dry and dead, stand now, and will stand
despite gales and snow all winter long, boldly lifting brown seed pods
aloft, pods that grin in the teeth of bitter gales and send their chaffy
seeds floating up the slope to plant the sunshine banner a little
farther aloft for next year. Many centuries they have been at it, but
few of them have climbed far, yet they so love the hill that they cling
tenaciously to the ground they have gained and seem to grow more
vigorously there than on less rugged soil.

The roughest ledges of the hill jut boldly to the southward, showing
gray granite shoulders to the sun and making this side almost a sheer
rock precipice. Yet here the Highlander cedars have chosen to make their
climb in battalions, plaiding the gray surface with russet brown and
olive green, clinging tenaciously by toe-tips where it would seem as if
only air-plants might find nourishment. No other trees dare the bare
granite steep, though hickories flank the cedars wherever the slopes of
the ridge have crumbled a little and given a better foothold of black
soil.

Strange to say, the purple wood-grass that surely loves sandy plains
best has sent little scouting parties up with the hickories, and here
and there occupies tiny plateaus among the ledges well up toward the
ridge, often rimmed round with the purplish green of the mountain
cranberry. At the bottom of the gullies the maples began the climb, but
they did not last long. Red and white oaks have won farther up, but
stopped invariably before the summit of the gully was reached.

From the beautiful Eliot Memorial Bridge, near the eastern limits of the
summit plateau of Blue Hill, you catch a wonderful glimpse southeasterly
right down a narrow ravine to a wider valley, and thence down again to a
glow of white ice which is Houghton’s Pond. The bare trees no longer
hide one another and you see where they made a flank movement in force
for the summit, swarming over the wider upland valley, and narrowing to
a wild charge of great chestnuts up the gully. These chestnuts do not
seem to stand rooted. They sway this way and that and seem to hurrah and
wave flags in the wild excitement of a desperate and hopeful venture.
They are motionless, of course, but they have all the semblance of
splendid action that genius has given to sculpture, and they add romance
to the most picturesque spot on the range. Yet never a chestnut top is
lifted above the ridge which tops the gully. To it they came in all the
fine enthusiasm of a well-planned and concerted advance, but stopped so
suddenly that you see them in splendid action still, as if with one
foot in the air for the step that should take them above the ridge.

The north wind of the ages has stopped them right there where their tops
are just far enough above the level of the ridge edge to be safe from
it. You see them best by climbing down the little gully among evergreen
wood ferns which grow in the rich, moist soil among the rocks, the only
touches of green unless you happen upon some polypodys seemingly growing
out of the rock itself.

Right among the chestnuts the semblance changes again with the
harlequin-like magic of the woods. The big trees are no longer fixed in
the attitude of desperate charge upon a rampart, as you saw them from
above. Among them they seem to be tipsy bacchanals who have chosen the
little secluded glen for a place of revelry, and are reeling about it
like clumsy woodsmen in a big-footed dance. A chestnut tree standing by
itself on a plain is as stately and dignified as a village patriarch.
Grouped together in level, rich woodland, chestnuts are prim and almost
lady-like. Why these particular trees in the little glen at the east
side of Blue Hill summit should skip about in clumsy riot is more than I
can tell, but they certainly seem to do it, and I am not the only one
who has seen it and been shocked by it.

Right near by is a company of schoolgirl beeches, very straight and slim
and fair-skinned and pale. These have drawn together in a shivering
group and show every symptom of feminine dignity, very young and quite
outraged. They whisper and draw themselves up to the full tenuity of
their height and you can hear the dry snip of indignation in their
voices long before you reach them. No doubt they thought to have the
glen all to themselves for a proper picnic with prunes and pickles, and
here are these great fellows thus misbehaving! It is a shame and the
park police should put a stop to it. The beeches are so frosty in their
indignant withdrawal that the icy whispering of their dry leaves sounds
like fast falling sleet. Slip among them when you are next on the hill,
shut your eyes and listen. The day may be as sunny and warm as a winter
day can be, but you will think you hear the snow falling fast and will
be sorry you have not brought your fur muffler.

As for the chestnuts, I suspect they drank mountain dew at the illicit
still just below the gully. Surely no springs should have a license to
do business among the hilltops of this granite range. Yet they well up
freely among the lesser spurs that lie between Great Blue and Hancock,
and their moisture, drawn from cool depths to little ponds where the
southern sun shines in and the north and west winds are held back by
granite ridges, make rallying places for all kinds of wood and pasture
people that have yearned for mountain heights, but could not stand the
rigors of the summits. There are three of these little ponds on the
heights of the range almost within a stone’s throw of one another. It
may be that the seepage from surrounding ledges accounts for their flow
of water, but I am more inclined to think that cracks in the backbone of
the hills let the water flow up from subterranean depths. The margins of
two of them are the happy home of greenbrier which grows in tropical
luxuriance all about, so binding the bushes together with its spiny
twine that it is almost impossible to pass through them to the water.
Button-ball and high-bush blueberry grow with it and hold out their
branches for its smilax-like decoration, and the solemn and secretive
witch-hazel stalks meditatively about wherever the overhead foliage is
dense enough to make the mysterious twilight that it best loves. It
strolls up the gully beneath the shade of the chestnuts and you can but
fancy it smiling sardonically at their revelry and the prim indignation
of the schoolgirl beeches. Here and there swamp maples, strangely out of
place on hilltops, glow gray in the dusk as you stand below them, or
blush red in the clear sun as you look at their branch tips from the
cliffs. It is a picturesque little three-spurred peak lying here between
Great Blue and Hancock so sheltered and warm in the midday sun that it
is only by watching the sky that you know it is winter, though the ice
is white and strong on the little ponds.

I think you can get the best view of all of Great Blue Hill from the
summit of the lesser hill beyond the spurs and ponds and south of
Hancock, just overhanging Houghton’s Pond. There you see the forest-clad
slope sweep grandly up to form this broad upland valley, wrinkle a bit
with the folds where lie the three little ponds, then rise again most
majestically all along the steep side of the hill. At this time of year
it is one broad, majestic mass of the warm gray of bare tree trunks in
which rock ridges stand indistinct in purer color, while here and there
clustering twig masses purple it. You can see the black shadows in the
face of the cliff where stands the little glen in which the chestnuts
disport, and down near the highest of the three ponds is a beautiful
little splash of white all flushed with pink. This marks the location of
a group of young birches, the only ones I find on the heights of the
range.

Midday had passed and with it the genial warmth that the south wind had
brought us. Instead romping northern breezes had a tang in them and torn
clouds sailed swiftly into view over the summit of Great Blue, rushing
deep blue shadows across the warm grays of the landscape. The age-old
battle of sun and wind was going on on every summit of the range.
Climbing the southerly slope of Hancock it was hard to believe it
winter. You got either season on the summit plateau according to the
nook you chose, but standing on the rim of the precipice, which faces
north you had no doubts. From your feet to the foot of the hill in this
direction it was winter indeed. Yet here was the greenest spot in the
whole range. Scrambling perilously down the face of the cliff I touched
rich green vegetation with either hand and stood amid luxuriance at the
bottom. For here you are at the meeting place of ferns.

Little sunshine reaches the face of this cliff in the high noon of a
midsummer day. No direct ray touches it all winter long, yet in the
chill twilight the polypodys swarm all along the summit of the ridge and
drip and dance down and stretch out their hands to neighbor ferns that
climb cheerily to meet them out of the moist shadows below. These are
the evergreen wood ferns. In the rich black frozen earth of the lower
woodland they grow in profusion. On the rocky acclivity they hold each
coign of vantage and splash the plaid of gray rock and brown leaves
with their rich green. Where cliff meets rock jumble the two draw
together and fraternize, and the polypodys come farther off the cliff
than I have often seen them, and the wood ferns grow in slenderer
crevices of the bare rock than anywhere else that I know.

The sun was gone from all the little ravines on the way back from
Hancock to Great Blue, and the chill of the fern-festooned shadow of the
cliff that I had just left seemed to go with me all along. It was
especially dark and chill in the little gully and I reached the summit
of the big hill too late to find the sun. There, where daybreak had
breathed of spring, nightfall shivered in the bite of winter winds. A
million electric glints splintered the purple dusk to northward, but
there was no warmth in them even when they fused into the glow of the
great city. With the shadow of night the cruel grip of winter had shut
down on the hilltop and I knew again, as I had known in the golden glow
of the morning, that it was midwinter. The dwarfed and storm-toughened
shrubs seemed to crouch a little closer to the adamantine earth, and
their frost-stiffened twigs sang in the bitter north wind. I felt the
chill in my own marrow and eagerly tramped the ringing granite toward
home.




SOME JANUARY BIRDS


It seems to be our lot this winter to have April continually smiling up
in the face of January. Again and again the north wind has come down
upon us and set his adamantine face against all such folly. The turf has
become flint; the ice has been eight inches thick on pond and placid
stream, and the very next morning, maybe, the soft air has breathed of
spring, and bluebirds have twittered deprecatingly as if glad to be
here, but altogether ashamed to be found so out of season. As a matter
of fact, of course, some bluebirds winter with us, but they don’t warble
“cheerily O” in the teeth of the north winds. On those days you must
seek them in the cuddly seclusion of dense evergreens, more than likely
among close-set cedars where the blue cedar-berries are still sweet and
plenty. But we have had many days in this January of 1909 when the
bluebirds have had a right to feel called to at least take a hurried
glimpse at the bird boxes or the holes in the old apple trees, just as
people take a flying trip to the summer cottage on a warm Sunday; they
know they can’t stay, but it is delightful to just look it over and
plan.

I think the crows, though they are tough old winter residents, have
something of the same impulse to plan nests and make eyes and cooing
conversation, one to another. To-day I heard, in the pine treetops of a
little pasture wood where several pair nest every year, the unmistakable
note. In that great song of Solomon which the whole out-door world will
chorus in the full tide of spring the crows have the bass part, no
doubt, but they sing it none the less musically. It is surprising what a
croak can become, between lovers.

I saw them slip away silently and shamefacedly as I approached, and I
knew them for callow youngsters, high-school age, let us say, to whom
shy love-making is never quite out of season. But they got their
come-uppance the moment they sailed out of the grove, for their
appearance was greeted with a wild and raucous chorus of crow
ha-ha-ha’s. High in the air, flapping round and round in silence above
the pines, a half dozen riotous youngsters of their own age had been
observing them, chuckling no doubt and winking to one another, and now
that the culprits were driven out into the open where all could see
them the chorus of jeers knew no bounds. It was as unmistakable as the
caressing tone, this jeering laughter. You had but to hear it to know
very well what they were saying. The crow language has but one word,
which in type is caw. But their inflections and tone qualities are such
that it is easy to make it express the whole diatonic scale of primitive
emotion.

Many of our summer birds whose winter range barely includes us seem to
be more than usually prevalent this winter. It may be that the mild
season has to do with this, but it is equally probable that a plenitude
of food is more directly responsible. Seed-eating birds are particularly
in luck this year. I do not know of a winter when the birch trees have
fruited so plentifully, nor have I noticed so many flocks of song
sparrows as this year. I find them twittering happily along through the
wood, hanging in quite unsparrow-like attitudes from slender birch
twigs, busy robbing the pendant cones of their tiny seeds. In the summer
you know the song sparrow as a very erect bird. He sits on some topmost
twig of cedar or berry bush and pours forth quite the cheeriest and
sweetest home song of the pasture land. Or perchance he flies, and the
usual short and oft-repeated refrain seems to be broken up by flutter of
his wings into a longer, softer, and more varied song that has less of
challenge and more of sweet content in it. In his winter notes, which
are really nothing but a cheery twittering, I always think I hear
something of the mellow singing quality of this song of the wing.

To-day I saw a sharp-shinned hawk, hunting noiselessly, no doubt for
these same sparrows. He flitted among the treetops like a nervous flash
of slaty gray, and was gone so quickly that had I not heard the welt of
his wing tips on the resisting air as he turned a sharp corner I should
never have seen him. Most of our hawks, though well known to take an
occasional chicken, are mouse and grasshopper eaters. The sharp-shinned
is the real chicken hawk, for he eats more birds than anything else,
though the small songsters of the thicket form the greater part of his
diet. I have rarely seen him here in winter, though his summer nest is
common in the deep woods, with its cream-buff eggs heavily blotched with
chocolate brown. Just as the plenitude of food of their kind kept the
song sparrows with us to enjoy the mild weather, so I think the
multitude of song sparrows and other succulent titbits made the
sharp-shinned hawk willing to winter where he had summered.

All these birds which are wintering as far north as they dare seem to
come out and cheer up in the April-like days, but in those which are
distinctly January you may tramp the woods for days and not see one of
them. The flicker is a rather common bird with us the winter through. In
a warm January rain you will often surprise him wandering about in the
thawed fields, looking for iced crickets and half concealed grubs and
chrysalids among the stubble. Let the snow come deep and the wind blow
out of the north and the flicker vanishes from the landscape. It is as
if he had gone into a hole and pulled his thirty-six nicknames in after
him, so completely has the flicker disappeared. He is a strong-winged
bird and I have always been willing to think that at such times he
simply whirled aloft on the northerly gale and never lighted till he was
a few hundred miles to the south. He could do it easily enough. He would
find bare ground and good feeding in the tidewater country of Virginia
when New England is three feet under snow and the zero gales are
drifting it deeper and freezing the heart out of the very trees in the
wood.

The other day, though, I caught one of them sitting in the hollow of an
ancient apple tree. There was an opening of some size facing the south
into which the midday sun shone with refreshing warmth. Here, sheltered
from the bite of the north wind the flicker had tucked himself away and
was enjoying his sunny nook much as pigeons do in just the right angle
of the city cornices. But he was better off than the pigeons for there
were fat grubs in the decaying wood that formed his shelter and he could
use his meal ticket without leaving his lodgings. Our woods are full of
such hostelries and they shelter more of the woodland creatures than we
know as we tramp carelessly by.

But if the bluebirds and flickers hide themselves securely through the
coldest winter days and the song sparrows and even the crows are apt to
be scarce and subdued, as is certainly the case in my woods, there are
other feathered folk who seem to delight in the cold and be never so gay
as when the sky is leaden, the wind bites, and the frost flakes of snow
squalls let the sun struggle through the upper atmosphere because it is
too bitter cold to really snow. Of these the chickadees lead. They seem
to be never so merry as when they hear the sweet music of the tinkle of
cold-tense snow crystals on the bare twigs.

In spite of the soft raiment in which the weather garbs itself to-day it
is only three days ago that the great organ of the woods piped to the
northerly wind as it breathed pedal notes through the pines and piped
shrill in the chestnut twigs. And there was more than organ music. The
white and red oaks, still holding fast to their brown leaves, gave forth
the rattling of a million delicate castanets, and the wind drew like a
soft bow across the finer strings of the birches so that all among
slender twigs you heard this fine tone of a muted violin singing a
little tender song of joy. For the trees were sadly weary of being
frozen one day and thawed the next. They thought the real winter was at
hand when the cold would

[Illustration: There are other feathered folk who seem to delight in the
cold]

be continuous and the snow deep. All we northern-bred folk love the real
winter and feel defrauded of our birthright if we do not get it.

Strangest of all were the beeches. They have held the lower of their
tan-pale leaves and with them have whispered of snow all winter long.
Whatever the day, you had but to stand among them with closed eyes and
you could hear the beech word for snow going tick, tick, tick, all
about. It seemed as if flakes must be falling and hitting the leaves so
plainly they spoke it. Now that the flakes were beginning the beeches
never said a word, but just stood mute and watched it come and listened
to the music of all the other trees. Or perhaps they listened to
something finer yet. It was only in their enchanted silence that I
thought I heard it. Now and then the wind held its breath and the oak
leaf castanets ceased, and then for a second I would be sure of it; an
elfin tinkle so crepuscular, so gossamer fine that it was less a sound
than a thought, the ringing of snow crystal on snow crystal as the
feathery flakes touched and separated in the frost-keen air. It surely
was there and the beech trees heard it and stood breathless in solemn
joy at the sound.

The chickadees were very happy that day. Little groups of half a dozen
flipped gaily from tree to tree, bustling awkwardly and jovially about
picking up food continually, though it is rarely possible to see what
they get as they glean from limb to limb. Winter is the time for
sociability, say the chickadees, and they welcome to their number the
red-breasted nuthatches that have followed the season down from the
Maine woods. The chickadee in his cheery endeavors to take his own in
the way of food where he finds it does some surprising acrobatic feats,
but they are almost always clumsy and you expect him momentarily to
break his neck. Not so the nuthatch. He runs along the under side of a
limb with his back to the ground as easily as he would run along the
upper side. He comes down the smooth trunk of a pine head down, just as
a squirrel does, his feet seeming to be reversible and to stick like
clamps wherever he cares to put them. All the time his busy little head
is poking here and there with sinuous agility and his slim, pointed bill
is gathering in the same invisible food, no doubt, that the chickadee is
after. And as he eats he talks, a quaint high-pitched, nasal drawl of
yna, yna, yna, that gets on your nerves after a while and you are glad
to see him let go his upside-down hold, turn a flip-flap in the air,
and light on another tree some distance away. I think Stockton got his
idea of negative gravity from watching the nuthatches. If I were mean
enough to shoot one I should as soon expect to see him fall up into the
sky as down to the earth, so usually regardless and defiant is he toward
the proper and accepted force of gravity.

Quite prim and upright as compared with these shifty wrigglers is the
third boon companion of these winter day expeditions, the downy
woodpecker. You are not so apt to find him as the other two, for his
work is deeper and more laborious and they are likely to flit flightily
away while he still drills and ogles. Yet you can hear him much farther
away than the others, and it is not difficult to slip quietly up and see
him at his work. Prim and erect he stands on some rotten stub, his
stiff tail-feathers jabbing it to hold him steady, his head now driving
his nail-like bill with taps like those of a busy carpenter’s hammer,
anon speeding up till it has almost the effect of an electric buzzer.
Then he looks solemnly with one eye in at the hole that he has made,
prods again eagerly and pulls out a fat white grub, gulps it, and goes
hop-toading up the stub looking for more probe possibilities. Or perhaps
he writes scrawly Ms. in the atmosphere as he flits jerkily over to the
next tree that pleases him.

Thus though not of a feather these three flock together in the biting
cold of winter days and seem to be cheery and courageous if not exactly
contented. They are all hole-born and hole-building birds and when night
overtakes them they know well where to find wind-proof hollow trunks
where they may snuggle, round and warm in their fluffed out feathers
till dawn calls them to work again.

Yet, with all the yearning of the trees and the joy of the woodland
creatures in the prospect of snow it ended in no snow storm. All day
long the sun shone palely through a frost fog and the frost crystals
sprang out of it at the touch of the icy wind and tinkled into
snowflakes right before your eyes. The wind swept a feathery fluff
together in corners but at nightfall when the moon shone through a
clearer air and a near-zero temperature the crystals had begun to
evaporate, and by morning hardly a trace of them was left. To-day it is
April-like; to-morrow we may have zero weather again and before these
words get into print perhaps the yearned-for snow will have come and
with its kindly shelter covered the succulent green things of pasture
and woodland that need it so badly.

It is wonderful, though, how they stand freezing and thawing and yet
remain green, firm in texture, and wholesome. The birds of the air have
feathers which they can fluff out and make into a down puff for a winter
night covering. Here in the pine grove is the pipsissewa starring the
ground with its rich green clumps. It is as full of color and sap,
seemingly, as it was in July when its fragrant wax-like blossoms starred
its green with pink. No cell of the fleshy texture of its green leaves
is broken nor is there a tarnish in their gloss. Its seedpod stands dry
on a dry scape in place of its flower, but that alone shows the
difference between summer and winter. Yet it stands naked to the north
wind protected by neither feathers nor fur. Who can tell me by what
principle it remains so? Why is the thin-leaved pyrola and the partridge
berry, puny creeping vine that it is, still green and unharmed by frost
when the tough, leathery leaves of the great oak tree not far off are
withered and brown?

Chlorophyl, and cellular structure, and fibro-vascular bundles in the
one plant wither and lose color and turn brown at a touch of frost. In
another not ten feet away they stand the rigors of our northern winters
and come out in the spring, seemingly unharmed and fit to carry on the
internal economy of the plant’s life until it shall produce new leaves
to take their places. Then in the mild air of early summer these winter
darers fade and die. Here in the swamp the tough and woody
cat-o’-nine-tails is brown and papery to the tip of its six-foot stalk.
The blue flag that was a foot high is brown and withered alongside it,
yet the tender young leaves of the _Ranunculus repens_ growing between
the two and not having a tenth of their strength are tender and young
and green and unharmed still. The first two died at a touch of the
frost. The buttercup leaves have been frozen and thawed a score of times
without hurt.

You might guess that the swamp water has an elixir in it that saves the
life of the repens; but how about the _Ranunculus bulbosus_, European
cousin of the repens? That grows on the sandy hillside, and even the
root tips that extend below its little white bulb have been frozen stiff
a score of times since the woody stemmed goldenrod beside it dropped
dead, sere and brown, at the first good freeze. Yet to-day in the
smiling sun I found the young leaves of the _Ranunculus bulbosus_ green
and succulent and unharmed of their cellular structure, and so I am sure
they will remain, under the snow or bare, as the case may be when the
first yellow bud pushes upward from that white bulb where it is now
patiently waiting the word. Our botanists who study heroically to find
some minute variation in form that they may add another Latin name to
their text-books might study these variations in habit and result and
tell me the reason for them. I’d be glad to buy some more books on
botany; but none that I have seen have so far within their pages any
explanation of this puzzle.




WHEN THE SNOW CAME


I haven’t seen my friend the cottontailed rabbit for some days. All the
winter, so far, he has frequented his little summer camp on the southern
slope of the hill, well up toward the top, among the red oaks. Here in a
little tangle of tiny undergrowth and brown leaves, with a fallen trunk
for overhead shelter, you might find him any forenoon. He had backed
into this place and trampled and snuggled till he had a round and cosy
form just a bit bigger than himself, where the sun might warm him until
he was drowsy and he could sit in a brown ball with his feet tucked
beneath his fluffy fur, his ears laid along his back, and his eyes half
closed in dreamy contentment.

I could step quietly up the path and see him sometimes a second before
he saw me, but only for a second. Then his dream of succulent bark of
wild apple trees and other delicacies of the winter woods would pass
with a single thump of his sturdy hind feet as he struck the earth a
half dozen feet away from his snug lodging, and more thumps and the
bobbing of a white tail would carry him out of sight in a flash. He bobs
and thumps just as a deer does when you surprise him in the forest, and
flies a white flag in just the same way. Both go jerking away like
sturdy but nervous sprites, and though a deer in the forest is supposed
to be the epitome of grace, I can never see it. The startled fawn and
the startled bunny are both too eager to get on to be graceful.

We have just had some touches of real

[Illustration: Here in a little tangle of tiny undergrowth and brown
leaves, with a fallen trunk for overhead shelter, you might find him
any forenoon]

winter and these have sent the cottontail to the seclusion of his
burrow, where he lacks the health-giving warmth of the sun, it is true,
but where he is snug and comfortable beneath the frost line. Like the
rabbit most of the wild creatures of the wood seem to endure the snow
with cheerful philosophy, but I am convinced that few of them like it.
It hides their food from them, and if it is deep or a strong crust makes
its surface difficult of penetration its long-continued presence mean
short rations or even starvation and death. The squirrels have some
stores within hollow trunks and these are available at any season, but
much of their winter food is buried helter-skelter beneath brown leaves
and too deep snow shuts them off from it. The fox must range farther and
pounce more surely, for the field mice which are his bread and butter
are squeaking about their usual business in pearly tunnels where he may
not reach them. The woodchucks are tucked away for the winter, the
skunks are dozing fitfully on short rations, hungry but inert, and even
Brer Rabbit does not venture out of his hole for days at a time when his
enemies, winter and rough weather, are upon him.

Yet if the furred and feathered people of pasture and woodland have no
occasion to love the snow it is far different with the trees and shrubs
and tender plants of the out-door world. These have yearned for it with
love and a faith that has rarely lacked fulfilment. They talked about it
incessantly, each in the voice of its kind, the big forest oaks with the
cheery rustle of sturdy burghers, the little scrub oaks with the
tittle-tattle of small-natured folk. Let the wind blow north or south
or high or low the birches sang a little silky song of snow and the
pines hummed or roared to the same refrain. Then it came, “announced by
all the trumpets of the sky,” as Emerson says, but muted trumpets that
blared without sound. The eyes saw the flourish of them, the nose mayhap
whiffed the rich odor of the storm. You could see it in the sky and feel
the light touch of its unwonted air on your cheek, but you could not say
that the wind blew north or blew south when the culmination of signs
made you sure of it. The storm may bleat along the hillside like a lost
lamb or roar high above in the clashings of the infinite skies after it
is well under way, but always before it begins is this little breathless
pause between the dying of one wind and the birth of another.

So it was that the first of this snow came to the woods. In the hush of
expectation there was a certain feeling of awe. The trees felt it as
much as I did and stood as breathless and expectant. Instead of clearly
defined clouds, the whole air seemed to thrill with the dusky gray
presence of a spirit out of unknown space, of whose beneficence we might
hope, but of whom we were not without dread. And so the dusk of the
storm we hoped for gloomed down on us in the breathless stillness and
tiny flakes slipped down so quietly that the touch of their ghost
fingers on my cheek was the first that I knew of their actual coming.
The pine boughs high over my head caught these first flakes and held
them lovingly and let them slip through their fingers only after many
caresses, and soon through all the pine wood you could hear a little
sigh that was a purr of contentment in the first faint breathing of the
north wind bearing many flakes.

Thus the snow comes to the woods. You can see its portent glooming in
the sky for hours beforehand, smell it in the rich, still air and feel
its touch on your cheek. When I stepped out from under the cathedral
gloom of the space beneath the pines, I found the air full of flakes
whirling down from the north and the field white with them.

Standing in the midst of the storm in the field, you have a chance to
see something of its color, for after all falling snow is only
relatively white. Looking toward the dense, dark foliage of the pine
wood, you see it at its best, especially across the wind, for the
contrast is most vivid and the color most distinct. Each individual
flake is so distinct and so white, from those near you, which go
scurrying earthward as if in a great hurry, to those of the distance,
which float leisurely down. Look again up the wind toward the gray of
the hard-wood forest and you shall find the falling hosts almost as gray
as the wood which they half blot out. But if you would see black snow,
you have but to lift your eyes to the leaden gray sky out of which, as
you see them from below, flakes float in black blots that erase
themselves only when they lie at your feet. In open wells in the deep
wood you can see this still more definitely as you look up, a black snow
falling all about you, to be changed to spotless white by some miracle
of contact with the earth.

In the deep woods, too, you hear the cry of the snow, not the song of
the trees in the joy of its coming, but the voices of the flakes
themselves, their little shrill cries as they touch leaf or twig. To
the pines that held up soft arms of welcome and clasp them close and
will not let them go away though each bough is weighted down, they
whisper a soft little cooing word that is surely “love” in any language.
No wonder it is warm under pine boughs in a snow-storm. The great trees
glow with the happiness of it and the radiance of their delight filters
down to you as you stand beneath. The flakes seem to love the bare,
smooth twigs of the hard-wood maples less, they give them just a pat and
a gentle word of greeting as they go by, and they touch the birches
almost flippantly. Among the fine pointed tridents of the pasture
cedars, however, they linger somewhat as they do among the pines, though
their song here is of jovial friendship only, with even something
waggish about it. They linger in groups among the cedar boughs for
awhile, but often start up in gentle glee and shake themselves clear,
leaving the tree in a sort of blank dismay until more of their fellows
come to take their places. There is a little swish of fairy laughter as
they do this, as of the snickering of fat bogles as they play pranks in
the white wilderness.

But it is over on the oak hillside where the red and black oaks still
hold resolutely to their dried leaves that the cry of the snow will most
astonish you. It is not at all the rustle of these oak leaves in a wind.
It is an outcry, an uproar, that drowns any other sound that might be in
the wood. It is impossible to distinguish voices or words. It is as if
ten thousand of the little people of the wood and field and sky had
suddenly come together in great excitement over something and were
shouting all up and down the gamut of goblin emotion. After I have stood
and listened to it for a minute or two I begin to look at one shoulder
and then the other fully expecting to see gabbling goblins grouped
there, yelling to one another in my very ears. Here with closed eyes you
may easily tell the quality of the snow about you by the sound. Each
sort of flake has its distinct tone which is easily recognized through
all the uproar. At nightfall of this first snow of ours it happened that
in the meeting of northerly and southerly currents which had brought the
storm, the north wind lulled and the south began to have its way again.
This gave us at first a great downfall of big flakes that seemed to blot
out all the world in an atmosphere of fluff. Then, evidently, the warmth
in the upper atmosphere increased for the big flakes gave way to a fine
fall of rounded sleet. Then, indeed, we got outcry the most astonishing
in the oak wood. The voices shrilled and fined and all crepitation was
lost in a vast chorus of a million peeping frogs. Nothing else ever
sounded like it. It was as if a goblin springtime had burst upon us in
the white gloom of the oak wood and all the hylas in the world were
piping their shrillest from the boughs.

I went home. I think it was time. People used to get among goblins at
dusk in this way in the old country and when they got back from goblin
land they found that they had been gone three years, and I didn’t care
to stay away so long.

During the night the sleet changed to rain which froze as it fell, and
in the morning the snow everywhere was but an inch or two deep and
covered with an icy crust that broke underfoot with a great noise and
effectually scared away any woodland thing that you approached, provided
it had powers of locomotion. Fox or crow, partridge or rabbit, must have
thought that Gulliver was once more walking in among the Lilliputians
with his very biggest boots on. Never were such thunderous footsteps
heard in my wood, at least not since the last icy crust. Frozen in the
icy surface were the trails that had been made when the snow was soft,
the squirrel’s long, plunging leaps with his hind feet dropping into the
hole his front feet had made, giving something you might mistake for
deer tracks, except that they went back up the tree. You saw where the
crow had dropped to earth and trailed his aristocratically long hind
toe, with its incurving claw. The crow’s foot is fine for grasping a
limb, but it does not fit the ground well. On the other hand, the trail
of the ruffed grouse which may lie beside it shows an ideal footprint
for walking woodland paths, the hind toe stubby nailed, short but firm,
and the whole print well planted and fitting the earth.

These and many more I found modeled in ice, but the trails that
interested me most were those beneath the crust, the long tunnels that
wound here and there, intersected and doubled and made portions of the
fields and forests for all the world like the blue veining of a white
skin. These were the trails of the shaggy-coated, crop-eared,
short-legged, shorttailed meadow mouse. This firm crust had opened to
him the opportunity of safety in paths that had been before dangerous in
the extreme. He knew where chestnuts had lain open to the sky for
months, but he dared not go into the open path to get them. Fox, cat,
skunk, weasel, hawk, owl, crow, all watched the paths and the edges of
the thick grass for him. He must burrow or die. So he does burrow all
the year through, just beneath the surface, in dirt if he must, under
light leaves and brush and matted grasses by preference, for there he
may go the more easily and quickly to his food. His eyesight and hearing
are good, and he moves like a little brown flash when he has to go into
the open.

If I wish to see him I watch well-worn footpaths through matted grass
and leaves. Here his tunnels end on one side of the path and begin on
the other and he takes the chance of crossing this risky opening to sun
and sky as often as he feels he must, but he wrecks the speed limit
every time he does it. So quickly does he go that you cannot be sure
what has happened; there was the stirring of a leaf on one side and a
grass stem on the other and a sudden vanishing touch of brown between
the two, but which way it went or whether it went at all is doubtful.
So, too, his tunnels come down and open at the water’s edge by the
meadow brook and if you are patient and have rare luck you may see him
swim across. Here trout and mink are on the watch for him. His numbers
need to be great if, with all his caution and agility, he is going to
survive all these huntsmen, and they are great. He may breed at two
months of age and have many litters a season and his progeny, if
unchecked, soon swarm. All the meadows are full of them this year, but
it is only when such a snow as we now have comes that we have a chance
to see what they may do.

In the summer-time they stick close to their meadows, living on
succulent roots and stems. They are especially fond of tuberous roots of
the wild morning-glory, which they store by the pound in their grass
larders near their nests. But under the welcome cover of the snow they
push their excursions far afield and their netted-veined trails come
even to your house itself, though they rarely dispute the wainscoting
with the house mouse. Now and then they do, however, and I fancy they
have no trouble in holding their own against their slighter and more
aristocratic cousins. When they do come you will know their presence by
the extraordinary noise of their gnawing. Once a stone crusher, no less
by the sound, got into my garret, and after one sleepless night I set
the biggest trap I had, expecting to get the most enormous brown rat
that ever happened, if not some new and more elephantine rodent. What I
caught was a well-grown field mouse, and the noise passed with him.

The rain which produced this thunderous and telltale snow crust brought
a new and gorgeous growth to the trees. From trunk to topmost twig, each
was garmented in regal splendor of crystal ice. I had been in goblin
land when I fled, at twilight, from the eerie shrilling of bogle hylas
among the oak trees. I had come back into fairyland with the rising sun.
The demure shrubs, gray Cinderellas of the ashes of the year, had been
touched by the magic wand and were robed in more gems than might glow in
the wildest dreams of the most fortunate princess of Arabian tale.
Ropes of pearl and festoons of diamonds weighed the more slender almost
to earth. The soft white shoulders of the birches drooped low in
bewildering curtsey, and to the fiddling of a little morning wind the
ball began with a tinkling of gem on gem, a stabbing of scintillant
azure, so that I was fain to shut my eyes with the splendor of it.

Then came the prince himself to dance with them, the morning sun,
flashing his gold emblazonry through their gems till the corruscation
drowned the sight in an outpouring of fire. The princesses all began to
speak as he came among them, a speech wherein dropped from their lips
all jewels and precious stones. Sunbursts of diamonds fell from dainty
young pines and ropes of pearls slid from the coral lips of slender
birches. The babble fell all about their feet in such ecstasies of
brilliant speech, such tinkling of fairy laughter as the wood had never
yet seen. Brave revels have the little people of the forest under the
moon of midsummer night, no doubt, but never could they show such royal,
dainty splendor as their own trees did this midwinter day when the sun
shone in upon them after the ice storm.




THE MINK’S HUNTING GROUND


I wish I could have seen the country about the great spring which goes
by the name, locally, of “Fountain Head” the year that the clock stopped
for the glaciers hereabout. That year when the last bit of the ice cap,
that for ages had slid down across southeastern Massachusetts and built
up its inextricable confusion of sand and gravel moraines, melted away,
would have shown a thousand great springs like it, bubbling up all
through the region, almost invariably from the northerly base of
gravelly cliffs over which the sun can hardly peep at noonday, so steep
they are. Here they flow to-day in the same mystery. Why should these
unfailing springs rush forth so steadily, be the weather hot or cold, or
the drought never so long or so severe? Why should their temperature
like their flow be changeless, summer or winter?

I sometimes believe that their waters filter through deep caverns from
far Arctic glaciers continually renewed. Perhaps to have looked at them
before the changing seasons of more thousands of years had clothed the
gravel and sand with humus, grown the forests all about and choked the
fountains themselves with acres of the muck of decayed vegetation no one
knows how deep, would have been to see them with clearer eyes and have
been led to an answer to the questions. Now I know them only as bits of
the land where time seems to have stood still, fastnesses where dwell
the lotus eaters of our New England woods, where winter’s cold howls
over their heads, but does not descend, and where summer’s heat rims
them round, but hardly dares dabble its toes in their cool retreat.

Progress has built its houses on the hills about them, freight trains
two miles away roar so mightily that the quaggy depths tremble with the
vibrations, and you may sit with the arethusas in mossy muck and hear
the honk of the automobile mingling with that of the wild geese as they
both go by in spring. Yet the one makes as much impression on the land
and its inhabitants as the other. The lotus eaters know not Ulysses; if
he wants them for his ships of progress he must capture them by force
and tie them beneath the rowers’ benches, else they return. Even the
temperature of those last days of the ice cap seems to have got tangled
in the spell and to dwell with the mild-eyed melancholy of the place the
year round. In midsummer the thermometer may stand at 120 in the
quivering nooks where the sun beats down upon the sandy plains above;
the waters of the fountain head are ice cold still, and give their
temperature to the brook and its borders. In midwinter the mercury may
register twenty below, and the gales from the very boreal pole freeze
the pines on those same sandy plains till their deep hearts burst; the
waters that flow from those mysterious fountains will have no skim of
ice on their surface.

From what unfathomed depths the waters draw their constancy we may never
know, nor on what day may well forth with them some new form of life
bred on the potency of their elixir. To-day is freezing cold and now
and then snow-squalls whirl in among the swamp maples, eddying in flocks
as the goldfinches do, yet the surface of the biggest pool where the
waters well up is covered with the vivid green of new plant life.
Millions of tiny boreal creatures swim free on the cool surface, plants
reduced to their simplest terms, born for aught I know in depths below
like those

    “Where Alph, the sacred river, ran
     Through caverns measureless to man
       Down to a sunless sea,”

whence they ooze in the seeping of the upward current to our shores. No
one has here found the seeds of these stemless pinheads of green that
lie flat on the surface and send down for a wee fraction of an inch
their two or three tiny root hairs into the water.

No one can say they are apetalous or monosepalous or sporangiferous or
call them other hard names in Latin having reference to their flowering
or fruiting for we may not say that they flower or fruit at all. These
minutest Lemnas give us no sign of stamin or spore, of carpel or
indusium, yet they multiply by millions and cover the surface of the
spring pools whence they depart constantly with the outflowing current,
voyaging gayly down Brobdingnagian rapids to the sea. The time of year
when it is winter in the sky above and on the bank a few feet up the
hillside, when all green life except that which grows with its roots in
this magic water from the deep caves of earth is either killed or
suspended, seems to be their time for growth.

They grow a little, to a certain stage when perhaps a plant covers
surface to the size of a pinhead and a half, then split and become
independent plants with a tiny root hair apiece. Brave equipment this
for facing the January gales and frost of a northern winter. Yet they
sail forth from the home pool as confidently as liners from the home
port and rollick all along down the stream, making harbor in every tiny
bay and collecting a fleet in each eddy. What potency of perpetual
spring they sow as they traverse all the ways that wind in and about the
levels below the fountain head we do not know, any more than we know
what elixir vitæ dwells in the waters on which they are borne, yet
something makes the region the lotus land of creatures of the wild where
they linger on unmindful of their vanished kindred.

Out of the rich vegetable mould of ages, in the cool, moist shadows grow
the rarer New England orchids in the summer, and the rarer migrant
birds of our summer woods find asylum here for their nests and young. In
the winter the ruffed grouse comes here to drink, finds gravel for his
crop always bare and unfrozen on the hillside where the first seepings
of water come forth, and no doubt gets an agreeable change of food in
the succulent green things of the shallows. Several of these birds cling
to the place, nor can I drive them away by simply flushing them. They
circle and come back to the brook margin or its immediate neighborhood
every time.

Where the swamp maples have grown large on the bank and lifted the soil
with their roots high enough to form miniature dry islands the mink have
built their burrows and thence they go forth to hunt the region all
about, but especially

[Illustration: You may get a glimpse of the weasel-like head of one
lifted above the bank as he sniffs the breeze for game and enemies]

the brook and its tributaries, most ravenously. If you are patient,
fortunate, and the wind is right you may at dusk get a glimpse of the
weasel-like head of one lifted above the bank as he sniffs the breeze
for game and enemies. In that light his fur will look black though it is
really a pretty shade of brown, but you will not fail to see the white
streak which runs from his chin downward. But, though you may not see
the animal himself you cannot, if there is snow on the ground, fail to
see his slender, aristocratic track with its clutching claws, for the
mink is a desperate hunter and always hungry. All is fish that comes to
his net,--trout, turtles, toads, snails, bugs, or anything he can find
in the brook that seems in the least edible.

The semi-aquatic life of the enchanted region is sadly destructive of
other life, and I feel little pity for the mink or the weasel, sleek
and beautiful wild creatures though they are, if they in turn fall into
the steel jaws which the trapper sets for them in the narrow passes all
up and down the stream. It is the common lot of the woods and only the
swiftest and most crafty can hope to escape it. The mink devour the
trout, and they, seemingly innocent and beautiful enough to have come
up, water sprites, from that unknown underground world whence well the
crystal waters in which they live, are as greedy and irresponsible in
their diet as the mink themselves. Like them, when hungry they will
devour the young of their own species and smack their lips over the
feast.

The trout will eat anything that looks to be alive either in the water
or on the surface. I often amuse myself in summer by biting small
chunks out of an apple and dropping them in, to see the trout swallow
them as ravenously as if they had suddenly become vegetarians and had
all the zeal of new converts. What the Jamaica ginger preparation of the
brook world is I don’t know, unless it is watercress. That grows, green
and peppery, all up and down the brook the year through. Perhaps the
trout go from my green apple luncheon over to that and thus join the
remedy to the disease.

One of the trout titbits is the gentle little caddice worm, grub of the
little miller-like caddice fly that flits in at the open window of a May
night and lights on the table under the glare of your lamp. He dwells on
the bottom in these same pure waters and he has much to do to defend
himself against the jaws of his nimble hunter. He is but a worm that
crawls, so speed may not save him. His skin is tender and he has no
weapon of defense save his brain which one would hardly think adequate
in so humble a creature. Yet if you will sit on the brink and watch what
goes on in the cool depths you will see how cleverly and in what a
variety of ways he and his kindred, for there are several varieties,
have become skilled in self-defense. The little fellow has, like most
grubs, the power to spin fine silk. This would count for little though
he spun a whole cocoon, for the trout would swallow him, silken overcoat
and all. But he does better than that. He collects bits of log from the
bottom and winds these in his silken warp till he has knotted himself
firmly within a log house. There is no incentive to a trout to eat twigs
from the bottom, so the defenseless caddice worm is passed unnoticed.
He is snugly rolled in silk within his rough house and moves about by
cautiously putting out a leg or two and crawling with the logs on his
back. Another variety uses small pebbles instead of logs. Taking a stone
from bottom in the swift running water of a tiny rapid to-day I found it
covered with little gravel barnacles that clung like limpets to the
proverbial rock.

I could pry them off only by the use of considerable force and even when
I did this the wee bits of gravel, carefully fitted together in a
hemisphere, still remained, bound in strong bands. Within the hollow was
the little creature that had built the structure, his silken netting
still holding him snug within his rock castle, so much brain has this
seemingly blind and helpless worm for the preservation of himself. But
more than this, the builder and riveter of this adamantine castle has
other use for his silken bands than to bind stone or to weave himself a
silken garment against the damp weather at the brook bottom. He is a
fisherman as well, and stretched between two stones near by or perhaps
hanging over the edge of the larger stone on which he dwells is his net,
built funnel-form with the larger end toward the oncoming current, the
smaller closed with silken netting, all carefully spread to catch tiny
creatures slipping down stream with the current, on which the
net-builder, castle-dweller, may feed. These homely, home-building,
home-keeping fishermen lead an humble and pious life compared with that
of the rakish, cannibalistic trout, and they have their reward. Some
day, before the spring is very old, they will give up casting their
nets, build their house firmer, though still leaving a chance for a
circulation of water, and fall asleep. They will awaken to glide
heavenward out of the swirl of the current, veritable white angels with
downy wings which they will spread and on which they will soar away to a
new world which is as different from that in which they bound themselves
in logs or granite to escape their enemies as is the old-time orthodox
heaven from the world in which the preachers of it lived.




IN THE WHITE WOODS


The snow came out of the north at a temperature of only twenty degrees
above zero, yet, strange to say, for some hours it came damp and froze
immediately on every tree-trunk or twig that it struck. The temperature
remained the same all day and through the night, but the streak of soft
weather somewhere up above which was responsible for the damp snow soon
passed away and frozen crystals sifted down that had in them no
suspicion of moisture. Yet these tangled tips with those already frozen
firmly to the trees, and made a wonderful snow growth the whole woodland
through. The next morning it hung there untouched in the crystal
stillness and as the woodland people waked they might well have rubbed
their eyes, for they had found a new world.

It was a mystical white world that had crowded in and mocked the slender
growth of all trees and shrubs with swollen facsimiles in white. The
northerly side of tree-trunks, large or small, showed no longer gray
bark or brown, rough or smooth. Instead, fluffy white boles rose from
the white ground and divided into white limbs, which separated again
into mighty twigs of white. The dark outlines of bare trees, the
delicate tracery of gray and black that massed day before yesterday in
the exquisite dark shades of the winter woods, existed only as a faint
definition of the world of whiteness which had descended upon us in a
night.

Upon each shrub and tree had grown another, its fellow in exact
reproduction of line and curve, only swollen to forty times the size.
This enormity of limb and twig shut off all vistas. Where it had been
easy to see through the bare wood, the brush merely latticing your view
and softening up the middle distance with gray or pink or brown,
according to the growth, now the gaze was tangled in a narrow grotto
heavily decorated with buttress and baluster, with fluting, frieze, and
fillet, with mantel, moulding, mullion, and machicolation, and beat in
vain against a solid wall of alabaster just beyond. The greater pines
were pointed cones of white, each limb drooping with the weight of snow
to its fellow below, and the hangings of the outer tips joining to form
a surface wherein miniature domes, set strangely askew, yet massed in
curves of superb beauty to the making of the symmetrical whole.

In it all there was no feeling of weight. As a matter of fact it pressed
the smaller shrubs and trees well down toward earth. The narrow woodland
path was barred with a woven portcullis of white that had swung down
from either side. Here and there in the open the smaller pasture cedars
were bowed to the ground, doing reverence to the garment of mystic
purity with which the earth was sanctified as if for the passing of the
grail. In a moment you expected to see some Galahad rise from his knees
with shining face, take horse beneath the marble towers of this woodland
Camelot, and ride down white lanes in holy quest. In the deep wood the
seedling pines broke through the drifts like gnomes from mines of
alabaster, whimsical green faces showing beneath grotesque caps and
shoulder capes that were part of the whelming snow. Yet it all looked as
light and airy as any structure of the imagination, seeming as if it
might rise and float away with a change of mood, some substance of which
air castles are built, some great white dream poised to drift lightly
into the realm of the remembered, as white dreams do.

In woodland pathways where the trees were large enough on either side so
that they did not bend beneath the snow and obstruct, all passage was
noiseless; amongst shrubs and slender saplings it was almost impossible.
The bent withes hobbled you, caught you breast high and hurled you back
with elastic but unyielding force, throttled you and drowned you in
avalanches of smothering white. To attempt to penetrate the thicket was
like plunging into soft drifts where in the blinding white twilight you
found yourself inexplicably held back by steel-like but invisible bonds,
drifts where you felt the shivery touch of the cold fingers of winter
magic changing you into a veritable snow man, and as such you emerged.
It was more than baptism, it was total immersion, you were initiated
into the order of the white woods and not even your heel was vulnerable.

Thus panoplied in white magic, my snowshoes making no sound on the
fluffy floor of woodland paths, I felt that I might stalk invisible and
unheeded in the wilderness world. The fern-seed of frost fronds had
fallen upon my head in fairy grottos built by magic in a night. These
had not been there before, they would not be there to-morrow. To-morrow,
too, the magic might be gone, but for to-day I was to feel the chill
joy of it.

A ruffed grouse was the first woodland creature not to see me. I stalked
around a white corner almost upon him and stood poised while he
continued to weave his starry necklaces of footprints in festoons about
the butts of scrubby oaks and wild-cherry shrubs. He too was barred from
the denser tangle which he might wish to penetrate. He did not seem to
be seeking food. Seemingly there was nothing under the scrub oaks that
he could get. It was more as if, having breakfasted well, he now walked
in meditation for a little, before starting in on the serious business
of the day. He too was wearing his snowshoes, and they held him up in
the soft snow fully as well as mine supported me. His feet that had been
bare in autumn now had grown quills which helped support his weight but
did not take away from the clean-cut, star-shaped impression of the
toes. Rather they made lesser points between these four greater ones and
added to the star-like appearance of the tracks.

I knew him for a male bird by the broad tufts of glossy black feathers
with which his neck was adorned. It was the first week in February, but
then Saint Valentine’s day comes on the fourteenth, and on this day, as
all folklore--which right or wrong we must perforce believe--informs us,
the birds choose their mates. My cock partridge must have been planning
a love sonnet, weaving rhymes as he wove his trail in rhythmic curves
that coquetted with one another as rhymes do. His head nodded the rhythm
as his feet fell in the proper places. Now and then he bent forward in
his walk as one

[Illustration: He lifted his head high, fluffed out those glossy black
neck feathers and strutted]

does in deep meditation. If he had hands they would have been clasped
behind his back when in this attitude, as his wings were. Again he
lifted his head high, fluffed out those glossy black neck feathers and
strutted. Here surely was a fine phrase that would reach the waiting
heart of that mottled brown hen that was now quietly keeping by herself
in some secluded corner of the wood. The thought threw out his chest,
and those tail feathers that had folded slimly as he walked in pensive
meditation spread and cocked fan-shaped. I half expected him to open his
strong, pointed bill and gobble as a turkey does under similar
circumstances. The demure placing of star after star in that necklace
trail was broken by a little fantastic _pas seul_, from which he dropped
suddenly on both feet, vaulted into the air, and whirred away down
arcades of snowy whiteness and vanished. I don’t think he saw me. He
was rushing to find the lady and recite that poem to her before he
forgot it.

On the white page of the path that lay open under groined arches of
alabaster no foot had written a record for many rods, then it seemed as
if from side to side stretched a highway. Back and forth in straight
lines had gone a creature that made a lovely decorative pattern of a
trail, a straight line firmly drawn as if with a stylus, on either side
at a distance say of three-fourths of an inch tiny footmarks just
opposite each other, while alternating with these and nearer the middle
line were fainter and finer footprints.

Here the tiny deer-mouse had drawn his long tail through the snow,
whisking from stump to stump in a quiver of excitement lest an enemy
gobble him up, shooting across like a gray shuttle weaving this
exquisite pattern that is like that of a dainty embroidery on a lady’s
collar. How he can gallop so regularly and make his tail mark so
straight is more than I can tell. Indeed, so sly he is and so swiftly
does he go that I have never seen him make it. Beside this tiny pattern
the marks where the gray squirrel has leaped across are like those of an
hippopotamus on a rampage and the print of my own snowshoe was as if
there had been a catastrophe and a section of the sky had fallen.

Along with the tiny mouse tracks were those of our least squirrel, the
chipmunk. There is no difficulty about seeing him. He will almost come
if you whistle for him. If you will camp near his burrow you may teach
him to come and eat nuts out of your hand, answering any prearranged
signal, such as whacking them together or chirping to him.

Even though you are a total stranger he will not hesitate to whisk out
of his hole under the brush heap right in your face and eyes, whisking
back again in great terror, no doubt, but immediately putting out his
whiskered nose to sniff and wrinkle it in comical confusion, half
friendly, half frightened. So I had but to wait a moment before little
_Tamias striatus_ was out from under the brush pile and had flipped over
to a fallen log, ploughing the soft snow off the end of it in a
comically frantic rush to his hole there, the entrance being snowed up.
He was in and out again in a jiffy, standing on his hind legs and
peering over the log and making noses at me, jumping to the

[Illustration: He was in and out again in a jiffy]

top and whirling and jumping down again, and then flashing out and
kicking up crystals in a rush across the road to another hole under
another brush pile, his scantily furred half tail erect and as
humorously vivacious as everything else about him. The chipmunk when he
thinks he is going to be captured and is filled with great fear--half of
it being, I believe, fear that he wont be--is the most delightfully
comical little chap that grows in the woods. If he’d only keep as wild
as that after he is tamed I’d like one for a pet.

Down in the open meadow where the unfrozen brook ran black in its banks
of snow, touched only here and there with the green of luxuriant
watercress, I found the trail of the crows. Not one was in sight and
there was no sound from them anywhere. It was as if the snow had
covered them under and they were unable to break through it. Here,
however, was evidence to the contrary. Surely they had breakfasted, and
no doubt well. They had marched all up and down the low banks, and where
a snowy island lay in midstream they had promenaded it from one end to
the other. Here and there I could see where they had stepped into
shallow water and waded. The marks of muddy claws in the white snow were
much in evidence where they had jumped out again. Just as summer bathers
“tread for quahaugs” in the summer shallows south of the cape, I could
fancy them feeling with their toes for shell-fish and prodding for them
with long bill when found. But they had had a salad, too, with
breakfast. I could see where they had pulled out the watercress all
along and cropped it down to the larger stems. Even in winter weather
when the snow lies deep the crow knows where to find what is good for
him.

Where the path wound round the brow of the hill and the birches stand,
their granaries still full of manna for the wandering bird, it seemed
again as if my plunge into the white thicket had baptized me with
invisibility. Of a sudden the air was full of the sound of wings and a
flock of tree sparrows that must have numbered hundreds swung about my
head and charged the snow-covered birches. Their dash shook some snow
off and a few lighted, the others swinging off and having at them again.
This time all found a footing and began to feed eagerly on the seeds
from the tiny cones, scattering the birdlike scales in flocks far
greater than their own.

I had stopped stock-still at the sound of their wings, and they took no
more notice of me than if I had been a snowed-up fence post or a pasture
cedar. I tried to count them, but it was not easy. They seemed to
twinkle from twig to twig like wavelets in the sun, and though their
garb is sober their movements dazzle. Just as I would get a group on a
single tree nicely tallied they flashed as one bird over to another
tree, and mingling with their fellows there spoiled the count. I finally
estimated, rather roughly, that there were three hundred of them, a half
of a light brigade of as merry fellows as I wish to meet. They twittered
jovially and musically among themselves, and now and then one essayed a
little _sotto voce_ song which he never could finish because immediately
his mouth was full.

Once or twice some inaudible order seemed to thrill through the flock
and they whirled upward as if a single muscle moved every wing, swung a
short ellipse and lighted again, often in the same trees. As they worked
into the birches almost over my very head I could see every marking on
them; the black mandibles, the lower yellowish at the base, the reddish
brown crown and the back streaked with the same color, with black, and a
yellowish buff, the wing coverts tipped with white and the grayish white
breast with what looks like an indistinct dark spot in the center. In a
kaleidoscopic flock of three hundred or more it is not easy to give
every bird even a passing glance, but I am quite sure there were other
than tree sparrows present. I seemed to see birds without the faint dark
spot in the breast. A few, I know, had a distinctly rufous tint there,
and I fancy swamp sparrows, a few of which winter hereabouts, and
perhaps other birds for sociability’s sake, were with my winter
chippies.

The shaking of the snow from the trees and their gleaning among the
birch cones had scattered the little seeds which they love so well all
about on the snow and soon they followed them. The surface a little
before had been white. Before the birds were ready to come down it was
spiced so liberally with the seeds and scales that they had shaken down
that it was the color of cinnamon. Then with one motion the flock
dropped like autumn leaves and began a most systematic seed hunt in
which they left no bit of the space unsought. Yet when they were gone
you would hardly find two tracks that crossed; they hopped in winding
parallels that never went over the same ground a second time, leaving
figures much like the mazes which schoolboys of long ago used to draw
on their slates. They came almost to my feet and I was beginning to feel
that my fancy of invisibility was very real after all when with a
twitter of alarm and a single united action they whirred into the air
and vanished over the treetops.

I turned away in chagrin. The magic was destroyed, evidently, and in
turning I saw the cause. Just behind me in the snow with quivering tail
and green eyes glaring accusingly was the family cat. He was hunting far
from home, but I saw contemptuous recognition in his eyes and I knew he
was thinking that here was that great, clumsy creature that was always
scaring away his game.




THE ROAD TO MUDDY POND


Two days of greedy south wind had licked up the crisp snow till all the
fields and southerly slopes were bare. Then came the lull before the
north wind should come back, a lull in which you had but to sniff the
air to smell the coming spring; its faint perfume crisped with a frosty
odor that lured the senses like a flavor of stephanotis frappé. It was a
day that tempts a man to take staff and scrip and climb the hills due
south to meet the romance the two days’ wind has brought from far down
the map, perhaps from Venezuela and the highlands that border the banks
of Orinoco. By noon the north wind will be driving it back again, though
bits of it will still be tangled in southerly facing corners of the
hills.

Such a day is fine for cedar swamps. The boggy morasses under foot will
be firm with the winter’s ice still, but the warm wind has swept all
things clear of snow. Into the most tangled depths you may penetrate
with at least firm footing. Where in summer the treacherous mosses wait
to let you through into black depths of soft muck that have no bottom,
you may walk in safety on the way that the winter has laid for you.

It is not a time of year to find new things, this season of
mid-February, and yet I had hardly faced the bewildering sun a mile
before, seeking the cool depths of a hemlock-clad northern hillside to
rest my eyes from the glare, I found a yellow birch all hung with fluffy
tassels, as if the wine aroma of the air had fooled it into foliage. Now
the yellow birch is not exactly rare in our woods, here south-west of
Boston, but it is rare enough to be called occasional. Where the _Betula
alba_ is as common, almost, as the grass under foot, the _Betula lutea_
may not occur once in a square mile. I know it only on cold northern
hillsides or in dense swamps where cool springs bathe its roots all
summer long. There the silvery yellow, silky shreds of its outer bark
mark its trunk as a thing of beauty, winter or summer. You feel like
stroking these curls as if they were those of a flaxen-haired youngster
lost in the deep woods and brave but a bit troubled and in need of
comfort from one who knows. That is the only impression the yellow birch
had ever made on me in all my greetings of it, yet here it was wearing a
semblance of young leaves in this wine-sweet February air.

Even after the cool depths of the woods had cured my eyes of the sun
glare the illusion remained and I had to climb the tree and pluck some
of this foliage before I was sure what it could be. Surely eyes and no
eyes have we all, for, in all my life, I had never noticed what happens
in winter to the catkins of the yellow birch. Instead of hanging rigid
like wee cones, as do those of the white birch, giving up seeds and
scales to sprinkle the snow or the bare earth as the creatures of the
woods have need of them, these had shed their _fleur-de-lis_ scales and
then held them fluttering in the wind, each by a tiny thread. On looking
at them closely I saw the slim, rat-tail spindle sticking out, its
surface file-like with the sockets of seed and scale, but the effect of
the whole was that of fluffy tan-colored tassels hung along the twigs.
Here and there among these _fleur-de-lis_ the round, flat,
wing-margined seeds were still tangled by the two pistils which still
remained, seeming like tiny black roots, or something like those hooks
by which the tick-seed fastens to you for a free ride.

Surely the wilderness families have strongly marked individuality. Both
the white and yellow birches must hold their seeds and scatter them
little by little the whole season through, that they may have the better
chance to germinate and continue the race, and I can never see why they
should not do it in the same way. But they do not. Perhaps this infinite
variability is arranged wisely so that people who blunder about with
half seeing eyes may now and then have them opened a little wider and so
be pleased and teased into blundering on. Another season I shall watch
the yellow birches and find, if I can, on what winter date their
catkins blossom into tassels.

The gravelly ridges of the woodland I tramped as I faced the golden sun
again are singularly like waves of the sea. They roll here and rise to
toppling pinnacles there and tumble about in a confusion that seems at
once inextricable and as if it had in it some rude but unfathomed order.
Surely as at sea every seventh wave is the highest; or is it the ninth,
or the third? Just as at sea, the horizon is by no means a level line.
Wave-strewn ridges shoulder up into it and now and then a peak lifts
that is a cumulation of waves all rushing toward a common center through
some obscure prompting of the surface pulsations. Sometimes at sea your
ship rises on one of these aggregations of waves and you see yawning in
front of it a veritable gulf; or the ship slips down into this gulf and
the toppling pinnacle whelms it and the captain reports a tidal wave to
the hydrographic office, if he is fortunate enough to reach it. So along
my route southward the terminal and lateral moraines, drumlins, and
kames rolled and toppled and leapt upward till they had swung me to a
pinnacled ridge whence I looked down into a stanza from the Idylls of
the King. Along a way like this once rode scornful and petulant Lynette,
followed by great-hearted Gareth, newly knighted, on his first quest;

    “Then, after one long slope was mounted, saw
    Bowl-shaped, through tops of many thousand pines
    A gloomy-gladed hollow slowly sink
    To westward--in the deeps whereof a mere,
    Round as the red eye of an eagle owl
    Under the half-dead sunset glared;--”

That is the way Tennyson saw it, and the counterpart of the gulf, out of
which looked the round-eyed mere, lay at my feet. Long years ago some
first settler, lacking certainly Tennyson’s outlook, stupidly cognizant
only of the worst that his prodding pole could stir up, named the wee
gem of a lake “Muddy Pond.” Here surely was another man with eyes and no
eyes. Round the margin’s lip, summer and winter, rolls the bronze green
sphagnum, its delicate tips simulating shaggy forest growth of hoary
pine and fir. Nestling in its gray-gold heart are the delicate pink
wonder-orchids of late May, the callopogon and arethusa. Here the
pitcher plant holds its purple-veined cups to the summer rain and traps
the insects that slide down its velvety lip and may not climb again
against this same velvet, become suddenly a spiny chevaux-de-frise. All
about are set the wickets of the bog-hobble, the _Nesæa verticillata_,
which in July will blossom into pink-purple flags--decorations, I dare
say, of wood-goblins who play at cricket here on the soft turf of a
midsummer-night’s tournament.

Of a summer day this tiny bowl is a mile-deep sapphire, holding the sky
in its heart. When thunder clouds hang threatening over it, it is a
black pearl with evanescent gleams of silver playing in its calm depths;
and always the dense green of the swamp cedars that rim its golden
bog-edge round are a setting of Alexandrite stone such as they mine in
the heart of the Ceylon mountains, decked with lighter pencilings of
chrysoprase and beryl. And some man, looking upon all this, saw only the
mud beneath it! Probably he trotted the bog and only knew the wickets
of the _Nesæa verticillata_ were there because they tripped him. And
I’ll warrant the goblins, sitting cross-legged in the deepest shadows of
the cedars, waiting for midnight and their game, mocked him with elfin
laughter--and all he heard was frogs.

Looking down upon it this brilliant February day, with a tiny cloud
drawn across the sun, it was a pearl. The winter and the distance made
the bog edging pure gold in which it shone with all the white radiance
of its opaque, foot-thick ice. Anon the sun came out and what had been a
pearl gathered subtle fires of blue and red in its crystalline heart and
flashed opaline tints back at me that changed again as I plunged down
the hill toward it, and it lay a Norwegian sunstone shooting forth
fire-yellow glows as the rays of the sun caught the right angle. Nor
was the ice less beautiful when I stood on it. Here opaqueness wove
sprightly patterns with crystalline purity. The surface was smooth under
foot and yet these patterns rose and fell in the ice itself, and it was
hard to believe they were not carved intaglio and then the surface iced
over to a level. It was no prettier ice than I had crossed on the big
pond, but its setting brought out the beauty.

Ice grown old, after all, is far more beautiful than young ice.
Character is built into it. Living has taught it the highest form of
art, which is to repeat beauty without sameness. What designs might the
makers of floor coverings win from this surface if they would but study
it, and how trite and tame in comparison seem their tiresome
interweaving of square and circle and their endless repetition!

This solid floor, woven by winter witchery, goes on through the spongy
surface of the bog, mingling with it, yet by some necromancy never
interfering with its own intricate patterns of growth. The sphagnum
fluffs up through it with its delicate fiber unharmed. The pitcher
plants sit jauntily holding their ewers to the sky, filled with ice
instead of water, to be sure, but uncracked and waiting in rows as if
for bogle bellboys to rush with them to unseen guests. I found one
flower-scape with its nodding head still persistent. The seed pod had
cracked along the sides, but the umbrella-like style was still there,
opened and inverted, and it had caught many of the seeds that the pod
had spilled and was holding them for a more favorable season, without
doubt.

Everywhere the solemn cassandra pushed its black twigs up through the
moss and held its leathery leaves, brown and discouraged, drooping yet
persistent. The cassandra always reminds me of thin, elderly New England
spinsters who enjoy poor health. It is so homely and solemn; even in
joyous June it never cracks a smile, but is just as lugubrious and
sallow and barely holds on to an unprofitable life. And all about,
indeed in many places crowding the very life out of it, grow these
brave, virid, white cedars. You’d think it might catch geniality from
them. Their footing is as precarious as its own. Of course, now, the ice
has set all things in its firm grip, but in summer there is little
enough to hold up the swamp cedars and it is only by entwining their
roots and growing them firmly together in a mat that they are able to
keep their sprightly uprightness. So closely are the young trees set on
the edge of their grove that it is difficult to penetrate their
intertwining branches, and even when you have passed this barrier you
find the trunks so close that often there is no room to go between them.
Here all branches have passed and the straight trunks run upward in
close parallels making all their struggle at the top. And a struggle it
has been indeed for all that are now alive. You may note this by the
bare poles of those that have lagged behind a little in the fight and
lost the magic touch of sunlight on their tops. These are dead and bare,
and their companions have so immediately taken up their slender space
that you wonder how the dead ones ever got so far as they did. It is a
very solemn temple under these cedars. The living wall the dead within
the catacombs and the sighing of the motionless leaves above your head
still leaves you in doubt. It may be trees that sorrow for dead
neighbors or gasp in the struggle to retain their own breathing space.

Little obstructs your passage, now that the firm ice is underfoot,
unless it is the too close set tree trunks. Goldthread and partridge
berry creep in the moss that mounds about the very stumps of the cedars,
but no other vine or shrub seems to have the vitality to grow here, or
if it had it has wisely used it to flee to more sunny uplands. Not even
in tropical jungles have I seen the struggle for existence so fierce as
it is among these too closely set swamp cedars. One in ten eventually
survives and makes a marketable growth. Other things bring them to
disaster than the choking crowding of their neighbors, however. Here
and there you can see big trees that lurch in strange fashion, some
this way and some that. This is most often true of a pine that by some
chance has grown among them. The cause is the uncertain footing of the
slimpsy bog. As they get heavier and taller they cannot find sufficient
anchorage in the yielding wallop beneath their roots, and sooner or
later a wind comes that tips them over. But I found in places among the
sheltering larger trees, groups of young ones, cedars, that could have
suffered from no wind, they were so well protected and walled round by
their elders. These were laid down in brief windrows all in the same
direction, and I wonder still what force accomplished it. If it had been
a tropical jungle I should have said that here a hippopotamus wandered
up out of the depths and back again, or here an elephant fled from some
retired statesman, but these are not beasts of our frozen forests.

In one place was another tropical suggestion that was a bit startling.
This was the cast skin of a snake that must have been four inches in
diameter. It was only the white bark of a dead birch that had fallen and
rotted, as to its heart-wood, all away, but the tougher bark remained,
dangling in white folds just as a snake’s skin does when cast.

But this is not the place to see the swamp cedars at their best. You are
on their gloomy side now. Toward the vivifying sun they turn every
cheerful atom within them and as you look down on them as the sun does
from some near by southern ridge you get the full effect of their
close-set masses of living green and realize the enormous virility
within them. It seems to me that our toughest tree here in eastern
Massachusetts is the red cedar. It grows on storm-swept rock cliffs
where nothing else but lichens can seem to find a foothold. Yet close
behind it I class this dweller in the rich, moist peat bogs. I find that
many botanists do not differentiate this tree that I call swamp cedar
from the red cedar, _Juniperus virginiana_. Yet it is nearer this than
it is to the arbor vitæ which is the so-called cedar of the Maine woods.
But it is not the red cedar in one important particular. It does not
have that wonderful red fragrant heart-wood that the red cedar has. That
alone, it seems to me, should give it a separate standing botanically.
Then its leaves are flatter and more of the arbor vitæ type than those
of the red cedar. And there you have it; but I know what happened. Long
ages ago, when staid and sober evergreens were more frisky than they
are now some particularly handsome young arbor vitæ lass came down from
the north woods and met and loved one of our husky red cedars. How could
she help it? Then there was a secret trip to Providence, or whatever
place was the Gretna Green of those days, and the elopers settled down
in Plymouth County, or perhaps here in Norfolk. That would account for
my white cedar, and it is the only way I can do it.

I was two miles further toward the Plymouth woods and was broiling a
chop for my dinner on the fork of a witch-hazel stick over the lovely
clear flame of dry white pine limbs, when I came across the second new
thing of my experience in the winter woods. That was black snow. It was
on the northerly edge of an open meadow, a spot so tangled with wild
rose and other slender shrubs that it was next to impossible to
penetrate it. For some reason the south wind had failed to carry off all
the snow here, and a thin coating of it lay on the ground. There was a
bit of open water on the edge of the tangle, and I noticed that this was
covered with a black coating. Going down to look closer I found that the
snow as far as I could look into the meadow was covered with this same
surface, making it fairly black. It looked quite like the soot from
black coal, but when I poked at it with my finger to see if it smutted
it hopped nimbly away. The open pool and the snow all about it was
covered with tiny black fleas or some similar skipping minute insect. I
was curious about these tiny black creatures, and I folded many of them
carefully in a leaf of my note book, creasing the edges firmly so that
I might keep them tight, and put them in my scrip. I intended to put
them under a microscope and see how many legs they had for all this
wonderful skipping; but they had too many for me. When I got home the
paper was blank. They had all skipped.




AMONG THE MUSKRAT LODGES


I always know the sound of the east wind as it comes over the Blue Hills
for the twanging of the bow from which winter has shot his Parthian
arrow. The keenest it is in all his quiver of keen darts, for it
penetrates joints in one’s armor that no gale from Arctic barrens has
been able to reach, that no fall of snow or of temperature has weakened.
Facing it to-day and feeling its barbs turn in the marrow of my
breastbone as I crossed Ponkapoag Pond I began to wonder how it fared
with my friends the muskrats who were wintering in the very teeth of it
over on the northwest shore. And so I turned my shoulder to the blow and
my face to the bog where tepees in a long line spire conically out of
the brown grasses on the bog edge, where the pickerel weed flaunted blue
banners all summer long.

The thermometer marked a temperature of but a few degrees below
freezing, but it was the coldest day of the winter. The bite of the wind
off Hudson’s Bay is as nothing to the chill which the Arctic sea-water
folds in its unfrozen heart as it sweeps from polar depths down the west
coast of Greenland, along the Labrador shore, round Newfoundland and
down again, shouldering into Massachusetts Bay; the reserve corps of the
winter’s assault, the Old Guard plunging desperately to its Waterloo in
the face of all-conquering spring. This chill the east wind had caught
up from the green depths of the surges he tossed, and made it the poison
of the points which he drove desperately home. Face this wind for a day
and you shall feel the venom working long after you have sought shelter,
nor shall even the cheer of a big open fire drive it easily from your
bones.

Yet you may draw from the chill this cheer, if you will, that no longer
is the worst yet to come; it is here and soon the prospect must mend. It
seems odd to think that some day next July we shall sniff this frigidity
drawn from the depths of the boreal current, borne on the wings of the
east wind, and revel in the intoxicating ozone with which it soothes our
heat-fevered nostrils.

Over on the bog edge are twenty-seven lodges, built of bog turf and
roots, dead grass and rushes, almost any rubbish in fact which
Mussascus, as Captain John Smith called him, has been able to get in the
neighborhood. Each has a foundation of some sort; one a stump submerged
in the muck, another a rude framework of alder sticks which the muskrat
cuts with his strong, chisel-like teeth and brings in his mouth as a
beaver would; others variously upheld, but all so placed that the
entrance may be beneath the water and beneath the ice also, however
thick it may freeze.

Little does the muskrat care for my marrow-piercing east wind. I’ll
wager that he never knows it blows, for rarely indeed at this time of
year does he put his nose out where he might feel it. His stairway leads
from the under-water entrance to a cosy and comfortable nest lined with
soft grass where he and his fellows cuddle. The mud-smeared,
water-soaked material of their walls is frozen to adamant. It is porous
enough in spots to give them air for breathing but does not let the
cold wind enter. It is as snug and safe a place as any one could devise.
An enemy must break through from without and long before he can smash
the frozen walls Mussascus has slipped into the water and gone his way
beneath the ice, first to another tepee, or if driven from that on again
to his burrows in the hard bank a thousand feet away.

Bending my ear close to the nearest lodge I rapped sharply on the rough
wall and listened. There was no sound. Again I rapped and my knock was
all that disturbed the silence within. Outside the frozen marsh grasses
sawed silkily one on another and the frost crystals that the wind was
sweeping from the thick white ice shrilled infinitesimally as they slid
by, but no sound came from the lodge. Evidently no one was at home. At
the next lodge it was different. The rap was succeeded by a second of
breathless silence, then there was the sound of scrambling, and as I
watched the dark clear ice that always obtains just about the lodge I
saw three silver gleams shoot athwart the clear space and vanish under
the opaque ice just beyond. Three Mussascuses had fled, their dense,
dark, close-set under fur holding the air entangled in its fine fuzz
which is impervious to water, thus accounting for the gleam.

Like the fur-seal the muskrat has an outer coat of rather coarse hair
and an undervest of much finer, more silky texture. This provides an air
space which enfolds him, however long he remains under water, and its
chill may not reach him nor can the moisture. Only the soles of his feet
and the very tip of his muffle, the nose-pad, are bare. His ears are set
down within his fur, and when he is beneath the surface each holds an
earful of air that catches under-water sounds and transmits them as
faithfully as it does the sounds of the upper world. He swims by
vigorous “dog-paddle” motions of his hind feet, which are large and
furnished with stiff, coarse hair that answers for a webbing between the
toes. Moreover, these feet are “hung-in” a little in a peculiar
club-footed way that makes his gait on land an awkward shamble, but
which allows them to “feather” as an oar does in swimming, thus giving
his propulsive apparatus the greatest possible efficiency.

People who know Mussascus best differ about the use of his tail. I have
never seen him use it except as a very efficient steering oar, but I
have been told that he sculls with it as a fish does with his, and thus
helps his progress. It is admirably adapted for either purpose, but it
is a tail that does not look as if it belonged to any fur-bearing
animal. It is almost as long as the muskrat himself and has never a hair
from butt to tip. Instead, it is furnished with small stiff scales which
might just as well be those of a snake. It is flattened sidewise and
trimmed down to almost a knife-edge at top and bottom, and the muskrat
uses it most efficiently.

But however well adapted their feet and tails are for swimming and their
fur for keeping them warm and dry beneath the ice, it would seem as if
the three little soft-furred, brown chaps that I had just driven from
their snug wigwam had a far greater problem to solve than that of warmth
or locomotion. How were they to breathe in the water beneath this
foot-thick coating where was no hole to give them an outlet to the air?
In a few minutes their lungs must have a new supply of oxygen, and if
let alone they are able to get it in a rather curious fashion. Coming up
beneath the ice, they expel the vitiated air, making a bubble which in a
short time absorbs new oxygen from the ice and water; then they
re-breathe it and go on.

In the early autumn when the ice is thin and clear you may capture
Mussascus by first driving him from his lodge, then following him as he
swims, a silvery streak beneath the ice, till he makes that telltale
bubble. Then go up and hit the ice sharply over the bubble and you drive
the little fellow away from his own breath and drown him. But you would
be unable to play any such mean trick as this along the Ponkapoag bog
edge now, for the muskrats are abundantly provided for, and I believe
they did it themselves. Here and there along by their tepees you find
open breathing holes. These, I am quite sure, the little fellows keep
open, just to be able now and then to take a glimpse at the upper world,
though they do not need them otherwise. But that is not the provision
which I mean. As far along the bog front as the tepees go there are
everywhere big white air-bubbles. From the tepees out into the pond they
show in many places for a distance of a hundred feet or more, and then
cease. Nowhere else in the pond are these bubbles and I believe the
muskrats have stored them here in their various excursions as relays,
providing against just such folk as myself, who might come along, force
them from their homes, and drown them beneath the thick ice covering.
Thus provided, the three that I had driven out would have no trouble in
reaching the most distant tepee or the higher bank beyond the bog edge,
where are their summer burrows.

Nor need they trouble their minds the winter through about provisions.
Some curious skater or perhaps a would-be fur dealer has been along at
one end of the bog and broken into a number of houses and scattered
others all to bits. A long thaw enabled him to do this, else the winter
had kept them so safe from vandals that only a heavy ax or pick would
give entrance. Among the ruins that this human earthquake caused are fat
roots of the yellow pond lily, the spatter dock, as long as my arm. It
looks as if some of the houses were half built of these petrified
reptiles broken in chunks, scaly looking remnants of a previous
geological age. These are the muskrat’s bread, or perhaps we might
better say his potatoes. Rough and forbidding as they look they are
white and crisp inside, and though their taste is as flat and insipid as
that of a raw potato to you and me the muskrat votes them delicious and
satisfying. The bottom of the pond is stored with them and he has but to
dive and dig, and he even buttresses his winter wigwams with them.

If he wants something a little more spicy there are spots in the bog,
now safe under water and ice but within easy reach of a submarine like
himself, where grow the pungent roots of the calamus, the sweet flag, of
which he is very fond and which, when dried and sugared, most humans
like to nibble. Stored all along the shallows are his shell-fish, the
fresh water mussels whose thin shells he can easily tear open and whose
white flesh he finds exceedingly toothsome. These, too, are as
available in winter as in summer. Indeed some of his houses are built in
the autumn, not so much for winter homes as restaurants where he may
dine in seclusion on these very mollusks. Quite a distance from the bog,
over in a shallow part of the pond, is a bed of these mussels with a
flat-topped rock near by rising above the surface. Here last fall the
muskrats built a lodge, right on the rock, which they used for this
purpose. The first skaters kicked this lodge to pieces. It was fairly
crammed with the empty shells of many a rare feast, showing that here
Mussascus had undoubtedly entertained his friends in true Bohemian
style.

So, while I shivered in the searching east wind on the sky side of the
ice, the muskrats were well fed and comfortable in a region of even
higher temperature, a country where the spring, which we say comes up
out of the south, but the muskrat knows wells up out of the ground
beneath, is already at his door. Its warmth is in the bog below and has
softened and even melted the ice all about the tepees. The ice on the
pond is a foot thick still, but the water beneath it is thrilled with
this same potency and you have but to stir it to sniff its fragrance.
Below the pond the brook which is its outlet splashes over the
long-abandoned sills of what was a gristmill dam in the days of the
early settlers. Here in spite of the keen lances of the wind and its
roar in the frozen maples overhead, I heard the soft tones of the coming
season in every babble of the brook. All the air was full of a fresh,
inviting fragrance which the water gives off as it flows. All the pond
is full of it beneath the ice already, and the muskrat breathes it in
his every excursion under the crystal depths. Soon he will abandon the
winter houses, which as soon as the frost leaves them will sag and
flatten and begin to sink into the bog itself, building its outer edge a
little firmer here and there, and thus helping it in its yearly
encroachment on the pond itself. As the ages have gone by, Mussascus has
been a pretty potent factor in this encroachment.

As the beaver has been a maker of ponds and a conserver of streams,
holding and delaying their waters with his dams, so the muskrat has
helped in the making of meadows and the sanding and grading of pond
edges. The first is done by his winter nests, the second by his summer
burrows which start under water at the pond edge and slant along near
the surface for thirty to fifty feet. Many cubic yards of sand and loam
are dug from these burrows and spread along in the shallows. His river
habits are strong upon him in this work, for he usually makes a delta of
entrances, three or four leading up into the same passage which often
has a wee exit above water, near the edge. Here if you are particularly
fortunate you may in midsummer see his young poke their noses up,
longing for a peek at the great world, before they are big enough to
swim out into it. Here, too, weasel and mink sometimes find entrance and
devour his family. But there are three litters a year, as a rule, so the
occasional weasel serves to keep down a too great increase in the
population.

His greatest enemy, however, is man, who so pollutes the streams with
sewage and factory refuse that no self-respecting muskrat can live in
many of them, and who hunts him for his fur for the making of automobile
coats. Yet in the case of my Ponkapoag Pond friends man’s hand for once
is for him rather than against. His home there is now a part of the park
system and he may be shot or trapped only under penalty of the law. This
has been so for some years now and I think it explains the numbers of
the winter lodges which are this year greater than ever before.




THICK ICE


In the winter the pond finds a voice. The great sheet of foot-thick,
white ice is like a gigantic disk in a telephone, receiver and
transmitter in one, sending and receiving messages between the earth and
space. Probably these messages pass equally in summer, only the
instruments are so tuned then that our finite ears may not perceive
them; for the surface of the pond has its water disk in the summer no
less than in winter, but an exquisitely thinner and finer one.

Taking to-day my first canoe trip of the year about the edges where the
imperative orders of the coming spring have opened clear water for a
half-hundred feet, I could not help noticing this thinner disk. The
west wind blew keen, but lightly, and had crowded the ice over toward
the eastern shore, leaving me free northwest passage in sunny shallows
where no ripple disturbed. Every dip of the paddle threw drops of water
on the surface, drops that shone like diamonds in the warm sun, but
sought, always for a time in vain, to reunite with their kindred water.
This invisible barrier held them up and they rolled about without
wetting it, just as they might have on a glossy disk of metal, though
they finally vanished into it. Like the drops the disk was made up of
molecules of water, but the fact that these rested on the very summit of
their fellows and between them and the air seemed to change their
character and give them a property of impenetrability.

It is this disk of water on water that holds up the summer water
striders, lean and ferocious-looking insects that skip about on the
surface, the tips of their long legs denting it but never being wet.
There is a big black land spider that lives on the water’s edge summers,
who is husky and heavy, yet will run along the surface, galloping and
jumping just as if on a dry and sandy beach and neither falling in nor
wetting his feet.

When I see the silver dimples that the water strider’s feet make in this
elastic surface and note this land spider galloping across a cove, the
disk of the pond’s summer telephone receiver and transmitter becomes
very real to my eyes. Very likely the under-water people, mullet and
bream and perch, read these messages in summer and know in advance what
the weather is going to be. If not, what is it that stops their feeding
and disturbs them before any rumble of the approaching thunderstorm has
reached my ears? Perhaps in this way they learn of other universe
happenings, if such are the subjects of messages that pass, though I am
not sure of this, for such information as I have been able to intercept
has always referred to approaching meteorological conditions.

They come to my ears only in winter, after the ice has reached a
thickness of a foot or so, these promptings out of unknown space.
Sometimes you need to be very near the receiver to note them. It is not
possible for a mile-square, foot-thick telephone disk to whisper, yet
often it grumbles only a hoarse word or two at so deep a pitch that you
would hardly know it was spoken. The lowest note on a piano is shrill in
comparison to this tone, audible only when the ear is within a few feet
of the ice. But there are other times when the winter ice on the pond
whoops and roars, and bellows and whangs as if all Bedlam were let loose
and were celebrating Guy Fawkes day. A mile away, of a still winter
evening, you may hear this and be dismayed, for the groanings and
bellowings are such as belong to no monsters of the present day, though
they might be echoes of antedeluvian battles corked within the earth for
ages and now for the first time let loose.

It is all very simple, of course, says my friend the scientist. It is
caused by vibrations due to the expanding or contracting of the ice, or
the expanding or contracting of a portion of it causing big cracks to
run hither and thither. It means simply that a change in temperature is
going on.

But does it? Or if so, is that all it means? I crossed the pond not
long ago of a beautiful springlike morning, after the sun had been up
for two hours or more. There was then no voice in the receiver other
than the gentle thrumming caused by the chopping of the fishermen,
making holes wherein to set pickerel traps, nor was there a cloud in the
sky. An hour later the soft haze of a coming warm gale spread over the
horizon to the southward, and as if at the touch of a key the pond began
to speak a word now and then that rapidly changed to full conversation.
From the near hilltop where I stood it was as if I had cut in on a
telephone line where two giants were eagerly talking under conditions
that made the hearing a difficult matter. There was question and answer,
query and interruption and repetition and change of tone from a low
voice to a shout.

It was humorously like a fellow townsman having trouble with Central so
far as inflection went, but there was a quality in the tone which barred
the human. You had but to listen with closed eyes to know that here
spoke the primal forces of nature. You may hear that same quality in the
voice of a gale at sea. I don’t mean the shrilling of the wind in the
rigging, or the cry of the waters, even, but that burbling undertone of
the upper air currents, growling and shouting at one another as they
roar by far overhead. An Arabian might say these are the voices of
Afrites, journeying through the air to the kingdom of Ethiopia. So even
in the bright sun of that springlike morning these solemn voices of the
winter ice seemed like echoes of messages superhuman, passing from deep
to deep.

At the time I laid the cause to the changes in temperature produced by
the warmth of the morning sun on the thick ice. Yet the uproar began
after the sun had been shining for an hour or two, and it ceased within
a half-hour. That night came the south blow and a warm storm.

In the whirligig of our New England winter weather the soft rain and
strong south wind passed. Then the wind blew strong from the northwest
and fair skies and low temperature prevailed for some days, welding the
erstwhile softened ice into an elastic surface as resonant as tempered
steel. Then came a still warm day in which we had the same increase of
temperature under springlike skies as on that previous day. Yet the pond
never uttered a word--audible to my listening human ears. Here were the
conditions like those of the other message period, yet not a word was
said. Even the soft haze which presaged another south blow filled the
sky, so apparently nothing was wanted but the voice at the other end of
the line. It was along in the evening that I heard the first call,
followed rapidly by a great uproar, so that people heard it in their
houses half a mile or more away. Immediately I looked up the
thermometer. The temperature had not changed a degree for hours. Yet
here were the primal forces telephoning back and forth to one another
and fairly making the welkin ring with their hubbub. Surely wires were
crossed somewhere on the ether waves, or else the tempers of the primal
forces themselves were out of sorts.

I seemed to hear familiar words in their roarings, admonitions to get
farther away from the transmitter, requests for strangers to get off the
line and other little courtesies that pass current in the telephone
booth; and so for a half-hour they kept it up. It was all very ghostly
and disquieting and savoring of the superhuman to listen to it in the
night and wonder what it was all about. At last one or the other giant
hung up the receiver with a tremendous bang, and nothing more was to be
heard but the mutterings of the other, grumbling about it in notes low
and tremendously deep.

Before morning the wind was blowing a wild gale from the south, rain was
pouring in torrents and we were evidently on the outer edge of a winter
hurricane that had been well up the coast, perhaps as far as Nantucket,
when the pond began to talk about it. No; I do not think changes in
temperature have much to do with it. My explanation for the scientist is
that these noises begin with a drop in the atmospheric pressure, a
region of low barometer moving up in advance of the storm. Taking the
pressure quite suddenly off the ice would start all the air imprisoned
in solution beneath it to pushing upward for a chance to get away. No
wonder it groans and whoops with all that wind in its wame.

But privately I am not so sure. We have so many sure-thing theories, and
so much definite knowledge to-day that to-morrow is all discredited and
cast aside leaving us groping for another theory, that it is just as
easy to believe myself eavesdropping at telephone talk between giants.
That particular night it sounded to me like Hercules on his way up from
Hades with Cerberus under his arm and a bit over-anxious lest the
deities fail to have the dog pound ready for him on arrival in the upper
regions--but of course that’s pagan myth. Anyway it was a great uproar.
I fancy winter ice makes the same outcry on other ponds, though I never
happened to hear it anywhere else.

To-day the ice was quiet enough on my side of the pond, though you could
see where it had been at work. With the west wind as team mate it was
dredging and grading over on the east shore. This is the every-day
winter work of thick ice. It picks up big rocks on the beach and carries
them off into deep water or moves them up or down the shore as it sees
fit. But always it pushes back the sand and gravel and stones on low
shores and steadily builds them up till you find wide shallow ridges
between the water’s edge and the slope of the land farther ashore. My
pond is very young, scarcely three-quarters of a century old, yet it
shows marked evidence of this work all along shore. When ice is thick
and the wind strong, especially toward spring when there is apt to be
free water along the edge, you may stand by and see the dredging effect
at work, see the low, long mound of gravel or sand slide backward up the
beach while the edge of the floe crumples and grinds and crumbles, but
still moves irresistibly to its work.

Over at Ponkapoag Pond, which is perhaps a hundred thousand years older,
the effect of this pushing ice through the ages, working at various
levels, has been to produce mounds and dikes almost beyond belief.
Moreover, these are placed in such situations that it is plain to see
that the water was for the greater part of that long time some feet
higher than now. In my first acquaintance with these ridges I thought
them dikes raised by modern men, early farmers, perhaps, who thus for
some occult reason banked the pond as they surrounded their fields with
the stone fences which last still. No man of to-day, however ardent a
farmer, builds these great barriers between field and field. Yet even
with the stone walls before the eye it is hard to believe that men built
dykes along the pond shore that averaged a hundred feet across and were
in some places much more. A ten-foot bank would do, and it was hard to
believe that so much labor would be willingly wasted. Yet along the
Ponkapoag Pond shore in one place is a barrier many feet high and broad
built, not of sand, but of the rough slate rock of the region, thrown
together loosely in huge rough blocks and tamped with earth. This is so
much bigger than any of the field-enclosing stone walls that it puts the
modern farmer quite out of the question, and on finding it I had
pleasant dreams of a prehistoric race of mound-builders who might have
preceded the Indians in their occupation of the land and have built
these pond embankments for purposes of their own.

Again my scientific friend disapproves my dream theory in well-chosen
argument that is very convincing--to him. Nevertheless I go my way with
mind equally divided,--between theories as to prehistoric
men-mound-builders and the probabilities of the work having been done by
that great beaver which, according to the Algonquin legend, made the
world out of mud brought up from the bottom of a lake.

Mind you, I am quite convinced that it is the ice which is doing this on
the Reservoir shore, but Ponkapoag--that is far enough away to be in the
land of legend and all sorts of wonderful things may have happened on
its borders.

Whatever its work, the ice for this winter has nearly completed it. In
early December its crystalline structure was that of ferns, laid flat
and interwoven, making it strong and elastic. All semblance of these has
vanished, and there remains but a loosely adhering structure built like
the Giant’s Causeway in the north of Ireland of vertical irregular
columns jammed together side by side. Moisture is all between these, and
if the temperature is below freezing cements them firmly together, and
it is safe to walk on the surface. The ice is almost a foot thick still,
but let a warm spring sun in on it, and this cement softens, and what
seems a firm foundation crumbles and fails beneath your foot. All along
the edges to-day the process of disintegration was going on, and you
could hear the little seeping swan song of these ice columns as they
slid apart and lay flat, making mush ice in the open water where they
soon dissolved and disappeared. Thus the ice waits the mandate of the
spring. Some day, soon, it will fall apart as if at a word, and vanish,
and by that token we shall know that the winter has really gone, and we
shall go about in a pleasant glow, listening for the first voice of the
spring frogs.




INDEX


A

Actias luna, 14

Afrite, 243

Algonquin, 251

Amina, 10

Apple tree, 110, 116, 132

Arbor vitæ, 210, 211

Arctic barrens, 4

Arethusa, 155, 201

Asplenium trichomanes, 84


B

Bahamas, 70

Barnacle, 165

Beaver, 231

Bedlam, 242

Bee, honey, 36

Beech, 98, 101, 119, 120

Bermudas, 90

Betula alba, 195

---- lutea, 195

Birch, 8, 10, 13, 71, 103, 112, 118, 135, 139, 149, 188, 210

Birch, yellow, 194, 196, 197

---- white, 197

Blackberry, 17

Blueberry, 34, 101

Bluebird, 109, 110, 117

Blue Hill, 89, 95, 98, 101, 102, 105, 217

Bog-hobble, 201

Bream, 239

Buttercup, 127

Buttonball, 101


C

Calamus, 228

Calopogon, 200

Callosamia promethia, 14

Camelot, 174

Carolinas, 92

Cassandra, 204, 205

Cat, 145, 189

Cat-o-nine-tails, 126

Cedar, 113, 139, 140, 186, 194

---- red, 91, 92, 94, 201, 202, 210

---- white, 205, 207, 209, 211

Cerberus, 247

Cherry, wild, 177

Chestnut, 93, 96, 97, 98, 99, 101, 103, 118, 145

Chickadee, 7, 117, 120, 121

Chicken, 114

Chickweed, 69

Chipmunk, 181, 183

Cranberry, mountain, 95

Crow, 110, 111, 112, 117, 143, 144, 145, 183, 185


D

Dandelion, 69

Deer, 143

Demoiselle flies, 84

Dragon fly, 84

Duck, wild, 55


E

Eliot memorial bridge, 95

Ethiopia, 243

Ettrick Shepherd, 26


F

Fern, 51, 52, 70, 104

---- Christmas, 77, 78, 84

---- cinnamon, 73, 81

---- crested shield-, 80

---- evergreen wood-, 97, 104

---- flowering, 75

---- hay-scented, 82

---- interrupted, 73

---- lady, 83

---- maidenhair spleenwort, 84

---- ostrich, 71, 74, 81

---- polypody, 82, 83, 84, 85, 97, 104, 105

---- royal, 76

---- seed, 176

---- sensitive, 75

---- spinulose wood-, 79

Flag, blue, 127

Flicker, 115, 116, 117

Fly, caddice, 163

---- house, 30, 31, 32, 33

Fox, 33, 143, 145

Frog, 142


G

Galahad, 174

Gareth, 199

Gerardia, 93

Giant’s Causeway, 252

Goldenrod, 6, 11, 13, 19, 93, 127

Goldfinch, 7, 157

Goldthread, 207

Goose, wild, 155

Gosnold, Bartholomew, 92

Grass, purple wood, 95

Grasshopper, 114

Greenbriar, 100

Greenland, 218

Grouse, ruffed, 144, 160, 177

Gulliver, 143

Guy Fawkes, 241


H

Hancock Hill, 100, 101, 102, 103, 105

Hawk, 145

---- chicken, 114

---- sharp-shinned, 113, 115

Hemlock, 195

Hepatica, 69

Hercules, 247

Hickory, 11, 14, 91, 92, 93, 94, 95

Hornet, white-faced, 25, 27, 35, 38

Houghton’s pond, 96, 102

Hudson’s Bay, 218

Hylas, 142, 148


I

Idylls of the King, 199

Indian, 251


J

Juniperus virginiana, 210


K

Kant, Immanuel, 48


L

Labrador, 3, 13, 93, 218

Ladies’ delights, 68

Lemnas, 158

Lilliputians, 143

Lily, yellow pond-, 227

Limpet, 165

Loon, 57, 58, 59, 60, 62, 63

Louisiana, 3

Lynette, 199


M

Maple, 13, 71, 93, 95, 101, 139, 157, 160

Mink, 146, 153, 160, 162, 232

Moth, luna, 15

---- spice-bush silk, 14

Mouse, 114, 147

---- deer, 180

---- field, 133, 148

---- meadow, 144

Muddy Pond, 200

Mullet, 239

Muskrat, 2, 18, 21, 217, 220, 224, 226, 228, 229, 230

Mussascus, 219, 221, 222, 223, 225, 229, 231

Mussel, fresh-water, 228


N

Nantucket, 246

Nebular hypothesis, 47

Nephrodium spinulosum, 81

Nesæa verticillata, 201

Newfoundland, 218

Nuthatch, red-breasted, 120, 121, 122


O

Oak, 13, 14, 17, 120, 126, 134, 142, 148

---- black, 140

---- red, 95, 118, 131, 140

---- scrub, 90, 131, 177

---- white, 5, 93, 95, 118

Old Guard, 218

Orinoco, 193

Osmunda regalis, 74

Owl, 145


P

Palm, 51, 52

Partridge, 143, 178

Partridge berry, 76, 126, 207

Perch, 239

Pickerel weed, 217

Pigeon, 116, 117

Pine, 13, 16, 50, 118, 125, 135, 136, 137, 139, 149, 156, 173, 208

Pipsissewa, 125

Pitcher plant, 200, 204

Pleiades, 49

Plesiosaurus, 52

Polypody, 82, 83, 84, 85, 97, 104, 105

Polystichum acrostichoides, 78

Ponkopoag pond, 3, 217, 233, 249, 250, 251

Pyrola, 76, 126


R

Rabbit, 131, 133, 134, 143

Ranunculus bulbosus, 127, 128

---- repens, 127

Rat, brown, 148

Reservoir Pond, 251

Rose, wild, 211


S

Samia cecropia, 14

Scorpion, 28, 29

Seal, fur, 222

Skunk, 6, 134, 145

Smilax, wild, 15

Smith, Capt. John, 219

Snail, 161

Snow, black, 211

Snowbird, 8

Sparrow, 8

---- song, 112, 113, 114, 115, 117

---- swamp, 187

---- tree, 185

Sphagnum, 200, 204, 205

Spider, land, 239

Squirrel, 121, 133, 143

---- gray, 181

Stephanotis, 193

Stockton, 122

Struthiopteris germanica, 72

Sweet flag, 17, 228


T

Tamias striatus, 182

Telia polyphemus, 14

Teneriffe, 4

Tennyson, 200

Toad, 161

Trout, 146, 161, 162, 163, 164, 166

Turkey, 179

Turtle, 161

Turner, Obadiah, 27


U

Ulysses, 55


V

Venezuela, 193

Vespa maculata, 26, 35

Violet, wood, 13


W

Wasp, common, 26

---- yellow jacket, 26

Water-strider, 239

Watercress, 163

Waterloo, 218

Weasel, 145, 162, 232

Willow, 16

Witch-hazel, 101

Woodchuck, 5, 6, 134

Woodpecker, downy, 122

Wordsworth, 75



*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK WILDWOOD WAYS ***


    

Updated editions will replace the previous one—the old editions will
be renamed.

Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright
law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works,
so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United
States without permission and without paying copyright
royalties. Special rules, set forth in the General Terms of Use part
of this license, apply to copying and distributing Project
Gutenberg™ electronic works to protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG™
concept and trademark. Project Gutenberg is a registered trademark,
and may not be used if you charge for an eBook, except by following
the terms of the trademark license, including paying royalties for use
of the Project Gutenberg trademark. If you do not charge anything for
copies of this eBook, complying with the trademark license is very
easy. You may use this eBook for nearly any purpose such as creation
of derivative works, reports, performances and research. Project
Gutenberg eBooks may be modified and printed and given away—you may
do practically ANYTHING in the United States with eBooks not protected
by U.S. copyright law. Redistribution is subject to the trademark
license, especially commercial redistribution.


START: FULL LICENSE

THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE

PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE YOU DISTRIBUTE OR USE THIS WORK

To protect the Project Gutenberg™ mission of promoting the free
distribution of electronic works, by using or distributing this work
(or any other work associated in any way with the phrase “Project
Gutenberg”), you agree to comply with all the terms of the Full
Project Gutenberg™ License available with this file or online at
www.gutenberg.org/license.

Section 1. General Terms of Use and Redistributing Project Gutenberg™
electronic works

1.A. By reading or using any part of this Project Gutenberg™
electronic work, you indicate that you have read, understand, agree to
and accept all the terms of this license and intellectual property
(trademark/copyright) agreement. If you do not agree to abide by all
the terms of this agreement, you must cease using and return or
destroy all copies of Project Gutenberg™ electronic works in your
possession. If you paid a fee for obtaining a copy of or access to a
Project Gutenberg™ electronic work and you do not agree to be bound
by the terms of this agreement, you may obtain a refund from the person
or entity to whom you paid the fee as set forth in paragraph 1.E.8.

1.B. “Project Gutenberg” is a registered trademark. It may only be
used on or associated in any way with an electronic work by people who
agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement. There are a few
things that you can do with most Project Gutenberg™ electronic works
even without complying with the full terms of this agreement. See
paragraph 1.C below. There are a lot of things you can do with Project
Gutenberg™ electronic works if you follow the terms of this
agreement and help preserve free future access to Project Gutenberg™
electronic works. See paragraph 1.E below.

1.C. The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation (“the
Foundation” or PGLAF), owns a compilation copyright in the collection
of Project Gutenberg™ electronic works. Nearly all the individual
works in the collection are in the public domain in the United
States. If an individual work is unprotected by copyright law in the
United States and you are located in the United States, we do not
claim a right to prevent you from copying, distributing, performing,
displaying or creating derivative works based on the work as long as
all references to Project Gutenberg are removed. Of course, we hope
that you will support the Project Gutenberg™ mission of promoting
free access to electronic works by freely sharing Project Gutenberg™
works in compliance with the terms of this agreement for keeping the
Project Gutenberg™ name associated with the work. You can easily
comply with the terms of this agreement by keeping this work in the
same format with its attached full Project Gutenberg™ License when
you share it without charge with others.

1.D. The copyright laws of the place where you are located also govern
what you can do with this work. Copyright laws in most countries are
in a constant state of change. If you are outside the United States,
check the laws of your country in addition to the terms of this
agreement before downloading, copying, displaying, performing,
distributing or creating derivative works based on this work or any
other Project Gutenberg™ work. The Foundation makes no
representations concerning the copyright status of any work in any
country other than the United States.

1.E. Unless you have removed all references to Project Gutenberg:

1.E.1. The following sentence, with active links to, or other
immediate access to, the full Project Gutenberg™ License must appear
prominently whenever any copy of a Project Gutenberg™ work (any work
on which the phrase “Project Gutenberg” appears, or with which the
phrase “Project Gutenberg” is associated) is accessed, displayed,
performed, viewed, copied or distributed:

    This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most
    other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions
    whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms
    of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online
    at www.gutenberg.org. If you
    are not located in the United States, you will have to check the laws
    of the country where you are located before using this eBook.
  
1.E.2. If an individual Project Gutenberg™ electronic work is
derived from texts not protected by U.S. copyright law (does not
contain a notice indicating that it is posted with permission of the
copyright holder), the work can be copied and distributed to anyone in
the United States without paying any fees or charges. If you are
redistributing or providing access to a work with the phrase “Project
Gutenberg” associated with or appearing on the work, you must comply
either with the requirements of paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 or
obtain permission for the use of the work and the Project Gutenberg™
trademark as set forth in paragraphs 1.E.8 or 1.E.9.

1.E.3. If an individual Project Gutenberg™ electronic work is posted
with the permission of the copyright holder, your use and distribution
must comply with both paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 and any
additional terms imposed by the copyright holder. Additional terms
will be linked to the Project Gutenberg™ License for all works
posted with the permission of the copyright holder found at the
beginning of this work.

1.E.4. Do not unlink or detach or remove the full Project Gutenberg™
License terms from this work, or any files containing a part of this
work or any other work associated with Project Gutenberg™.

1.E.5. Do not copy, display, perform, distribute or redistribute this
electronic work, or any part of this electronic work, without
prominently displaying the sentence set forth in paragraph 1.E.1 with
active links or immediate access to the full terms of the Project
Gutenberg™ License.

1.E.6. You may convert to and distribute this work in any binary,
compressed, marked up, nonproprietary or proprietary form, including
any word processing or hypertext form. However, if you provide access
to or distribute copies of a Project Gutenberg™ work in a format
other than “Plain Vanilla ASCII” or other format used in the official
version posted on the official Project Gutenberg™ website
(www.gutenberg.org), you must, at no additional cost, fee or expense
to the user, provide a copy, a means of exporting a copy, or a means
of obtaining a copy upon request, of the work in its original “Plain
Vanilla ASCII” or other form. Any alternate format must include the
full Project Gutenberg™ License as specified in paragraph 1.E.1.

1.E.7. Do not charge a fee for access to, viewing, displaying,
performing, copying or distributing any Project Gutenberg™ works
unless you comply with paragraph 1.E.8 or 1.E.9.

1.E.8. You may charge a reasonable fee for copies of or providing
access to or distributing Project Gutenberg™ electronic works
provided that:

    • You pay a royalty fee of 20% of the gross profits you derive from
        the use of Project Gutenberg™ works calculated using the method
        you already use to calculate your applicable taxes. The fee is owed
        to the owner of the Project Gutenberg™ trademark, but he has
        agreed to donate royalties under this paragraph to the Project
        Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation. Royalty payments must be paid
        within 60 days following each date on which you prepare (or are
        legally required to prepare) your periodic tax returns. Royalty
        payments should be clearly marked as such and sent to the Project
        Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation at the address specified in
        Section 4, “Information about donations to the Project Gutenberg
        Literary Archive Foundation.”
    
    • You provide a full refund of any money paid by a user who notifies
        you in writing (or by e-mail) within 30 days of receipt that s/he
        does not agree to the terms of the full Project Gutenberg™
        License. You must require such a user to return or destroy all
        copies of the works possessed in a physical medium and discontinue
        all use of and all access to other copies of Project Gutenberg™
        works.
    
    • You provide, in accordance with paragraph 1.F.3, a full refund of
        any money paid for a work or a replacement copy, if a defect in the
        electronic work is discovered and reported to you within 90 days of
        receipt of the work.
    
    • You comply with all other terms of this agreement for free
        distribution of Project Gutenberg™ works.
    

1.E.9. If you wish to charge a fee or distribute a Project
Gutenberg™ electronic work or group of works on different terms than
are set forth in this agreement, you must obtain permission in writing
from the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the manager of
the Project Gutenberg™ trademark. Contact the Foundation as set
forth in Section 3 below.

1.F.

1.F.1. Project Gutenberg volunteers and employees expend considerable
effort to identify, do copyright research on, transcribe and proofread
works not protected by U.S. copyright law in creating the Project
Gutenberg™ collection. Despite these efforts, Project Gutenberg™
electronic works, and the medium on which they may be stored, may
contain “Defects,” such as, but not limited to, incomplete, inaccurate
or corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other
intellectual property infringement, a defective or damaged disk or
other medium, a computer virus, or computer codes that damage or
cannot be read by your equipment.

1.F.2. LIMITED WARRANTY, DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES - Except for the “Right
of Replacement or Refund” described in paragraph 1.F.3, the Project
Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the owner of the Project
Gutenberg™ trademark, and any other party distributing a Project
Gutenberg™ electronic work under this agreement, disclaim all
liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including legal
fees. YOU AGREE THAT YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE, STRICT
LIABILITY, BREACH OF WARRANTY OR BREACH OF CONTRACT EXCEPT THOSE
PROVIDED IN PARAGRAPH 1.F.3. YOU AGREE THAT THE FOUNDATION, THE
TRADEMARK OWNER, AND ANY DISTRIBUTOR UNDER THIS AGREEMENT WILL NOT BE
LIABLE TO YOU FOR ACTUAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE OR
INCIDENTAL DAMAGES EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH
DAMAGE.

1.F.3. LIMITED RIGHT OF REPLACEMENT OR REFUND - If you discover a
defect in this electronic work within 90 days of receiving it, you can
receive a refund of the money (if any) you paid for it by sending a
written explanation to the person you received the work from. If you
received the work on a physical medium, you must return the medium
with your written explanation. The person or entity that provided you
with the defective work may elect to provide a replacement copy in
lieu of a refund. If you received the work electronically, the person
or entity providing it to you may choose to give you a second
opportunity to receive the work electronically in lieu of a refund. If
the second copy is also defective, you may demand a refund in writing
without further opportunities to fix the problem.

1.F.4. Except for the limited right of replacement or refund set forth
in paragraph 1.F.3, this work is provided to you ‘AS-IS’, WITH NO
OTHER WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT
LIMITED TO WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY OR FITNESS FOR ANY PURPOSE.

1.F.5. Some states do not allow disclaimers of certain implied
warranties or the exclusion or limitation of certain types of
damages. If any disclaimer or limitation set forth in this agreement
violates the law of the state applicable to this agreement, the
agreement shall be interpreted to make the maximum disclaimer or
limitation permitted by the applicable state law. The invalidity or
unenforceability of any provision of this agreement shall not void the
remaining provisions.

1.F.6. INDEMNITY - You agree to indemnify and hold the Foundation, the
trademark owner, any agent or employee of the Foundation, anyone
providing copies of Project Gutenberg™ electronic works in
accordance with this agreement, and any volunteers associated with the
production, promotion and distribution of Project Gutenberg™
electronic works, harmless from all liability, costs and expenses,
including legal fees, that arise directly or indirectly from any of
the following which you do or cause to occur: (a) distribution of this
or any Project Gutenberg™ work, (b) alteration, modification, or
additions or deletions to any Project Gutenberg™ work, and (c) any
Defect you cause.

Section 2. Information about the Mission of Project Gutenberg™

Project Gutenberg™ is synonymous with the free distribution of
electronic works in formats readable by the widest variety of
computers including obsolete, old, middle-aged and new computers. It
exists because of the efforts of hundreds of volunteers and donations
from people in all walks of life.

Volunteers and financial support to provide volunteers with the
assistance they need are critical to reaching Project Gutenberg™’s
goals and ensuring that the Project Gutenberg™ collection will
remain freely available for generations to come. In 2001, the Project
Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation was created to provide a secure
and permanent future for Project Gutenberg™ and future
generations. To learn more about the Project Gutenberg Literary
Archive Foundation and how your efforts and donations can help, see
Sections 3 and 4 and the Foundation information page at www.gutenberg.org.

Section 3. Information about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation

The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a non-profit
501(c)(3) educational corporation organized under the laws of the
state of Mississippi and granted tax exempt status by the Internal
Revenue Service. The Foundation’s EIN or federal tax identification
number is 64-6221541. Contributions to the Project Gutenberg Literary
Archive Foundation are tax deductible to the full extent permitted by
U.S. federal laws and your state’s laws.

The Foundation’s business office is located at 809 North 1500 West,
Salt Lake City, UT 84116, (801) 596-1887. Email contact links and up
to date contact information can be found at the Foundation’s website
and official page at www.gutenberg.org/contact

Section 4. Information about Donations to the Project Gutenberg
Literary Archive Foundation

Project Gutenberg™ depends upon and cannot survive without widespread
public support and donations to carry out its mission of
increasing the number of public domain and licensed works that can be
freely distributed in machine-readable form accessible by the widest
array of equipment including outdated equipment. Many small donations
($1 to $5,000) are particularly important to maintaining tax exempt
status with the IRS.

The Foundation is committed to complying with the laws regulating
charities and charitable donations in all 50 states of the United
States. Compliance requirements are not uniform and it takes a
considerable effort, much paperwork and many fees to meet and keep up
with these requirements. We do not solicit donations in locations
where we have not received written confirmation of compliance. To SEND
DONATIONS or determine the status of compliance for any particular state
visit www.gutenberg.org/donate.

While we cannot and do not solicit contributions from states where we
have not met the solicitation requirements, we know of no prohibition
against accepting unsolicited donations from donors in such states who
approach us with offers to donate.

International donations are gratefully accepted, but we cannot make
any statements concerning tax treatment of donations received from
outside the United States. U.S. laws alone swamp our small staff.

Please check the Project Gutenberg web pages for current donation
methods and addresses. Donations are accepted in a number of other
ways including checks, online payments and credit card donations. To
donate, please visit: www.gutenberg.org/donate.

Section 5. General Information About Project Gutenberg™ electronic works

Professor Michael S. Hart was the originator of the Project
Gutenberg™ concept of a library of electronic works that could be
freely shared with anyone. For forty years, he produced and
distributed Project Gutenberg™ eBooks with only a loose network of
volunteer support.

Project Gutenberg™ eBooks are often created from several printed
editions, all of which are confirmed as not protected by copyright in
the U.S. unless a copyright notice is included. Thus, we do not
necessarily keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper
edition.

Most people start at our website which has the main PG search
facility: www.gutenberg.org.

This website includes information about Project Gutenberg™,
including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary
Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to
subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks.